TohQ Old Post Road 



"TKe 

PublicK 

Common 

General 

Road 

and 

HigHway 

from 

King's 

Bridge 

to tHe 

Ferry at 

Crawlier 

over 

against 

tKe 

City of 

Albany/* 



// 







f^ 




PHILIPSE MANOR HOUSE, 1682. 

Now Yonkers' City Hall. 



THE 



NEW YORK AND ALBANY 
POST ROAD 



FROM KINGS BRIDGE TO "THE FERRY AT CRAWLIER, 
OVER AGAINST ALBANY," BEING AN ACCOUNT OF A 
JAUNT ON FOOT MADE AT SUNDRY CONVENIENT TIMES 
BETWEEN MAY AND NOVEMBER, NINETEEN HUNDRED 
AND FIVE 



BY C. G. HINE 



1905 

PUBLISHED AT lOO WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK, BY C. G. HINE. 






Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1906, by C. G. Hike, 
in the oflBce of the Librarian at Congi'ess, Washington, D. C. 






Contents* 



PAGE 

FOREWORD iii 

KING'S BRIDGE TO YONKERS i 

HASTINGS TO ARDSLEY lo 

IRVINGTON TO TARRYTOWN 17 

OSSINING TO HESSIAN HILL 26 

PEEKSKILL AND CORTLANDTVILLE TO GALLOWS HILL 34 

CONTINENTAL VILLAGE TO WICCOPEE PASS 43 

FISHKILL, WAPPINGER FALLS AND POUGHKEEPSIE. . . . 49 

HYDE PARK, STAATSBURG AND RHINEBECK 62 

RED HOOK TO STONE MILL 72 

CLAVERACK AND HUDSON 80 

KINDERHOOK 89 

WE LEAVE THE POST ROAD FOR THAT WHICH SKIRTS 
THE RIVER 99 



1lllu6tration0» 



PAGE 

PHILIPSE MANOR HOUSE FRONTISPIECE 

DUTCH CHURCH, TARRYTOWN 22 

DUSENBURY'S TAVERN, CORTLANDTVILLE 39 

DUTCH CHURCH, FISHKILL 53 

LIVINGSTON HOUSE, POUGHKEEPSIE 57 

' KIP-HEERMANCE-BEEKMAN-LIVINGSTON HOUSE, 

RHINEBECK 67 
COURT HOUSE. CLAVERACK 81 

>VAN ALLEN, OR KATRINA VAN TASSEL HOUSE, KIND- 

ERHOOK 91 

FORT CRALO, GREENBUSH 105 



-formiortr. 



The Hudson Valley, above all other places in this country, 
combines historic and romantic interest with the beauties of 
nature. It is one hundred and fifty miles crowded with the 
splendors of mountain and forest and river, and replete with 
incident and legend. To quote George William Curtis: "Its 
morning and evening reaches are like the lakes of a dream." 
Everyone who visits New York comes or goes, if possible, by the 
river route. Few know much of anything, however, about the Old 
Post Road, that one-time artery of travel and trade, whose dust 
has been stirred by the moccasin of the Indian and the boot of the 
soldier ; whose echoes are the crack of the stage driver's whip 
and the whistle of the startled deer ; whose bordering hills were 
named for the wild boar and the wild cat, and along whose edges 
are still scattered the interesting relics of a past that the passen- 
ger by steamer or rail can never know. 

Take it in May or June when all nature is fresh and green, 
with fleecy clouds above, and below a bank of wild azalea or an 



FOREWORD. 

apple orchard in bloom. Or try it in the Fall when the woods are 
as gay as the painted butterfly. Each season holds out its own 
attractions. 

Few places can equal the Hudson Valley for the Autumn 
panorama. The brilliant colors of the deciduous foliage inter- 
mingled with the dark of the evergreens rise from the blue of the 
river to the blue of heaven with every variety of tree and shrub to 
lend a hand in the illumination. It is red gold and yellow gold, 
purple and fine linen, and all manner of precious stones when the 
sun puts a crown of glory on some great tulip or sparkles in the 
gorgeous maple leaves. The colors are so splendid that even 
Turner, in all his glory, could not equal one of these. 

There is no office at which to buy a ticket for this Post Road 
route. It is Shanks' mare, with an independence and freedom 
that no other mode of travel knows. To be sure, one can also 
take it on horseback, by bicycle or automobile, according to fancy 
and finances, and, provided he does not exceed the speed limit, 
it matters little how he goes. The speed limit naturally differs 
with the individual. The writer thinks that three miles an hour 
is fast enough — a pace that enables one to keep his eyes on the 
pi(5lure and does not necessitate a continuous inspe6lion of the 
road. 



FOREIVORD. 

Naturally the weather plays its part in such an open air jour- 
ney, and this is particularly the case if the trip be made on foot. 
It is the loss of the landscape, blotted out by the mist, rather than 
the physical discomfort of being caught in a rain squall, that 
counts. In fact, if one is protected by a light rubber cape, and 
will take the storm philosophically with a mind to enjoy it and 
rise superior to the drip on his knees, there is huge satisfaction 
in being alone with the patter of the rain. But the loss of the 
landscape is serious in such country as the Post Road deals with. 
An instance of this comes vividly to mind in conne(5lion with the 
Wiccopee Pass and the plain south of Fishkill. As I first saw it 
of a perfe6l June evening, it was as delicately beautiful as a bit 
of silver filigree, but another time, in September, the mist hung 
low on the mountains. It v/as either raining, or had just stopped, 
or was about to begin again, and it had been doing that or worse 
all day and the day before, and that which had been a delight in 
June was now a matter of so many miles to be disposed of as 
quickly as possible. There is a local expression in these parts, 
applied to certain phases of the weather : "As black as a black 
hat", which one can better appreciate after he has seen the scowl 
with which an Autumn storm can sweep down these mountains. 
Good May or June weather and the soft delight of Indian Sum- 



FOREWORD. 

mer are equally enjoyable, but avoid the Ides of March, or, in 
other words, the days of the equino6lial. 

The amount of baggage is best decided after one has tramped 
it a bit. At first the tendency is to take the various little luxuries 
that are so necessary at home, but after they have been pulling at 
the shoulders all day long and the unaccustomed strain has de- 
veloped possibilities in the way of aches undreamed of before, 
the conviction is gradually forced on the wayfarer that every 
ounce counts, and next time many of the "necessities" are left 
behind. Crowd such things as must be carried into a "tourist's 
bag" that can be slung from one shoulder, and over the other 
hang a small, light camera, and take the Post Road home with 
you to dream o'er of Winter nights. 



NOTE.— Quotations have been made from Henry W. Bison's History ot the United States 
published by MacMillan & Co. 



lktno'0 IBvxbQC to IJ)onf^cr0. 



THE NEUTRAL GROUND. 



In 1703 the Provincial Legislature passed a "Publick High- 
ways" act, part of which reads as follows : — 

"Ptiblick and Common General Highway to extend from 
King's Bridge in the County of Westchester through the same 
County of Westchester, Dutchess County and the County of 
Albany, of the breadth of four rods, English measurement, at the 
least, to be, continue and remain forever, the Publick Common 
General Road and Highway from King's Bridge aforesaid to the 
ferry at Crawlier over against the city of Albany." 

This, being in the reign of Queen Anne, was at first known 
as the Queen's Road, but in due time became known as the 
Albany Post Road. 

Stages for the north originally started from Cortland Street ; 
later the starting point was moved up to Broadway and Twenty- 



KING'S BRIDGE. 

first Street, and as other means of conveyance improved and 
multiplied, the point for starting was moved north and further 
north until finally the railroad was finished through to Albany 
and the stage coach was a reminiscence of bygone times. 

It is ''159 m. from N. York" to Albany by the Post Road, as 
the old mile stones figure it. When they were set up, a hundred 
years or so ago. New York City was south of the present City 
Hall, and one can get some idea of the city's growth when he 
knows that there still exists on Manhattan Island a stone im- 
bedded in a bordering wall along Broadway, and in about its 
proper place, in the neighborhood of Two Hundred and Fifteenth 
Street, which reads "12 miles from N. York." 

This trip starts with Kings Bridge, built by Frederick Philipse 
in 1693. That bridge — which, like Mark Twain's jackknife, that 
had had two new handles and six new blades, but was still the 
same old jackknife — still connedls Manhattan Island with the 
main land, being supported on stone piers that are said to be the 
original ones used. There is but one other bridge in the entire 
trip to Albany that can rival its antique and aged appearance, 
and that crosses the Roloff Jansen Kill in Columbia County. 
Just East of the King's Bridge was the "wading place" of the 
Indians, and later of the Dutch, where the valiant Anthony Van 



KING'S BRIDGE. 

Corlear met his fate, and, according to Irving, gave the stream its 
present name. 

To one who likes to speculate as to what might have been, 
had things been different. King's Bridge affords large oppor- 
tunity for thought. It seems always to have been a favorite 
haunt of the human race, its encircling hills and accessibility by 
water no doubt being responsible for this popularity. Extensive 
beds of oyster shells testify to former Indian occupancy, and the 
Dutch appear to have shown the same preference for this quiet 
nook, though they finally pitched their tents at the lower end of 
the island which furnished larger opportunity for trade. If the 
city had been established here, would we to-day be taking our 
pleasure jaunts into the country where now is the Battery, and 
would our antiquarians still be discovering Indian remains in 
that region ? 

Bolton's History of Westchester County says that the site of 
the present village of King's Bridge was that originally selected 
by the Dutch for their city of New Amsterdam, it being a spot 
protected from the blasts of Winter by the encircling hills, and 
it may have been that the swamps of Mosholu Creek gave them 
pleasurable anticipations of dykes and ditches — a touch of home. 



KING'S BRIDGE. 

They had but to re-name the creek and make it a real Amster 
Dam. 

Spuyten Duyvil Hill toward the west was known to the In- 
dians as Nipnichsen. Here they had a castle or stockade to 
protecfl them against the Sauk-hi-can-ni, the "fire workers", who 
dwelt on the western shore of the great river Mohican-i-tuck, and 
from which later came that dele6lable fire-water known as "Jersey 
lightning," against which no red man is ever known to have raised 
a hand. In later days three small American redoubts, known as 
forts Nos. I, 2 and 3, crowned this same hill. One of these is now 
doing duty as the cellar walls of a dwelling. On the rise of 
ground ,to the east known as Tetard's Height, was Fort Inde- 
pendence, or No. 4, This series of eight small forts, which cov- 
ered the upper end of Manhattan Island from the heights of the 
adjoining mainland, seem to have been more ornamental than 
useful, as they fell into British hands with little or no fighting. 
No. 8 overlooked Laurel Hill, on which stood Fort George. 

In the early days King's Bridge appears to have been the 
only connecting link with the mainland, for not only did travelers 
for the north go this way, but it seems that those for the east 
also availed themselves of this approach to the mainland, as 
Madam Knight, on her journey from New Haven to New York, 



KING'S BRIDGE. 

in 1704, speaks of coming to "Spiting Devil, else King's Bridge, 
where they pay three pence for passing over with a horse, which 
the man that keeps the gate set up at the end of the bridge 
receives." 

The "Neutral Ground" came down to this point, and during 
the Revolution it was the borderland over which the raids of 
both belligerents swept. Congress, recognizing its importance, 
ordered in May. 1775, "That a post be immediately taken and 
fortified at or near King's Bridge, and that the ground be chosen 
with a particular view to prevent the communication between 
the City of New York and the country from being interrupted 
by land," 

Here in January, 1777, Major-General Heath attacked a body 
of Hessians under Knyphausen and drove them within their 
works, but the Americans were in turn driven oflf, and again in 
1781, in order to afiford the French officers a view of the British 
outposts, the American Army moved down to King's Bridge 
when the usual skirmish followed — in fact, it was a storm centre 
so long as the British occupied New York. 

The Macomb mansion, a fine house even to-day, once the 
home of Major-General Alexander Macomb, the "hero of Platts- 
burg," still overlooks the waters of Spuyten Duyvil Creek. 



THE VALE OF YONKERS. 

Originally a tavern, it was purchased about 1800 by Alexander 
Macomb whose son, Robert, was ruined by the destruction of 
Macomb's Dam, which went down before the embattled farmers, 
with whom it interfered. The Macomb family was a band of 
sturdy fighters, all of the five sons taking an active part in the 
militia or the regular army, but the reputation of the family rests 
principally on the glorious deeds of Alexander in the war of 1812. 
The Post Road, known in these days as Broadway, follows the 
eastern edge of the Mosholu swamp to Van Cortlandt Park, 
through what is called the Vale of Yonkers, Here is Vault Hill, 
one of the points selected by Washington on which to make a 
display for the benefit of the British while he quietly led his main 
army south for the operations against Cornwallis. On a clear 
day the hill is in plain view from Manhattan Island, and the camp 
fires and general indications of activity on its summit helped 
materially in the scheme to deceive the enemy. The hill has its 
name from the fa6l that it was used as a burial ground by the 
early generations of the Van Cortlandt family. The property 
was sold in 1699 by Hon. Frederick Philipse to his son-in-law, 
Jacobus Van Cortlandt (a brother of Stephanus Van Cortlandt of 
Cortlandt), and the mansion was erected by Frederick Van Cort- 
landt in 1748. It was from the portals of this loyal home that 



YONKERS. 

General Washington stepped forth on that glorious morning 
when he rode south at the head of his battered columns to receive 
back again the city of New York from the hands of the retiring 
British. Northeast of it is situated Indian Field, memorable 
as the scene of an engagement between the British and the Stock- 
bridge Indians, resulting in the practical annihilation of the latter. 

The road shortly becomes a village street and so continues 
into Yonkers. In 1646 the Indian sachem Tacharew granted the 
land to Adrian Von der Donck, the first lawyer of New Nether- 
land. The Indians called it Nap-pe-cha-mack, the "rapid water 
settlement," the "settlement" being located about the mouth of 
the stream now known as Sawmill River. The Dutch called 
their settlement Younkers, Younckers, Jonkers or Yonkers, de- 
rived from Jonkheer, a common name for the male heir of a 
Dutch family. 

The old Philipse manor house, now Yonkers's City Hall, was 
erected about 1682, the present front being added in 1745. In 
its palmy days it is said to have sheltered a retinue of thirty white 
and twenty colored servants. Here was born Mary Philipse, July 
3, 1730, the heroine of Cooper's "Spy," and the girl who is said to 
have refused Washington. In January, 1758, she married Col. 
Roger Morris. Tradition tells how, amid the splendors of the 



THE GREAT STONE, MACKASSIN. 

wedding feast, a tall Indian, wrapped in his scarlet blanket, sud- 
denly appeared in the doorway and solemnly predicted that 
the family possessions should pass from its control "When the 
eagle shall despoil the lion of his mane." The mystery was ex- 
plained later when the property was confiscated because of the 
royalist leanings of the family. 

The site of Pomona Hall, burned some twenty years ago, 
where Burr took refuge for a time after the Hamilton duel, is 
now occupied by a modern public school. It bordered the Post 
Road toward the northern edge of the village, commanding a 
fine view of the Hudson, 

Just inside the northern township Hne of Yonkers, in the 
river's edge, lies the Great Stone, Mackassin, of the Indians, the 
''copper-colored stone," an enchanted rock which was an obje(5l 
of veneration, and on whose flat surface the aborigines probably 
held sacred feasts. Originally it stood out in the water, but the 
railway embankment has changed all this, and now it is over- 
shadowed by great advertising boards which the pale-face pro- 
vides for his traveling brother to feast his eyes upon. 

For some miles, pradlically as far as the Croton River, the 
way is lined with the fine estates of the wealthy, some made nota- 
ble by reason of their owners, as Greystone, the former home of 



YONKERS. 

Samuel J. Tilden. It is no uncommon thing to have some par- 
ticularly fine lawn pointed out as the most perfedl in the country. 
If what the local patriots say is true, there is at least one such in 
every village hereabouts. 



1ba0tinG0 to Brbalei?, 



Greenburgh, "Graintown" bounds Yonkers on the north. 
Here, the present site of Dobbs Ferry, was the Indian town of 
Weck-quas-keck, "the place of the bark kettle." It was the un- 
provoked murder of an Indian here and its subsequent revenge 
that led to the massacre of the Indians in Jersey and the follow- 
ing Indian war which brought the Dutch almost to the last 
extremity. 

Hastings, the first town beyond Yonkers, covers the old Post 
Estate. In early times the inhabitants seem to have developed a 
rather unenviable reputation as sports, cock fights and horse 
racing being mentioned as the principal amusements. Here, in 
1776, a troop of Sheldon's Horse ambuscaded a body of Hessians, 
only one of whom escaped. Peter Post, who appears to have 
helped lead the enemy to destruction, was later caught by them 
and beaten, being left for dead. 

As the traveler enters Hastings he passes the former resi- 



DR. HENRY DRAPER. 

dence of Dr. Henry Draper. The old observatory, built in 1870, 
still stands, though damaged by a recent fire. Here Dr. Draper 
made the first photographs ever taken of the moon. The name 
of Draper should be revered by every amateur photographer. 
The father of Henry, Dr. John William, was a friend of Daguerre, 
and it is said that in this building was developed the first portrait 
negative. The dwelling is beautifully situated on the high river 
bluff and affords a wonderful view up and down the watery 
highway. 

Close on the road stands an old forge or smithy where Wash- 
ington's officers were in the habit of having their horses shod 
when in the neighborhood. The place also boasts a "Washington 
Spring," but its chiefest natural glory is a great walnut tree 
which tradition says was, away back in the Indian days, a Council 
Tree of the Weckquaskecks. In one of the Draper cottages once 
lived Admiral Farragut, whose wife used the first prize money he 
received to purchase some needed article for the local church. 
There are few places that hold so many and varied interests for 
the pilgrim as the old Draper homestead. 

The road winds along the sides of the hills, sometimes fifty, 
sometimes one hundred and fifty feet above the water, and many 
are the beautiful vistas through the trees and across the well-kept 



DOBBS FERRY. 

lawns. By this time the solid wall of the Palisades is beginning 
to break and the outline of the Jersey hills becomes more varied. 
But we are just now interested nearer home, for as one ap- 
proaches Dobbs Ferry he steps on almost holy ground. Here is 
the Livingston house, where, after the fighting was all over, 
Washington and Governor Clinton met the British commander, 
General Sir Guy Carlton, to make the final arrangements for 
peace ; here the papers were signed which permitted of the dis- 
banding of the American Army, and in which the British gave 
up all claim upon the allegiance and control of the country. 

So far back as 1698 a Dob was located here. On account of 
the ferry the place was an important one during the Revolution 
and many interesting incidents happened in the neighborhood. 
It was here that Arnold and Andre planned to hold their first 
meeting, but accident prevented their coming together ; and it was 
here that Sir Henry Clinton's representative met General Greene, 
October, 1780, in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the execu- 
tion of Andre. In July, 1781, the American and French armies 
were encamped on the hills round about while preparations were 
being pushed as though for an attack on New York, pioneers 
being sent forward to clear the roads toward King's Bridge. 
Even the American army was wholly unaware of Washington's 



DOBBS FERRY. 

intention to strike Cornwallis, and the British were so completely 
deceived that the American troops reached the Delaware before 
Clinton awoke to the situation. 

Those patriotic Democrats who mourn the extravagance of 
the government in granting pensions may be interested to know 
that the first pension ever granted by the United States was to a 
Dobbs Ferry boy named Vincent, who was crippled for life by a 
gang of Tory cowboys. The boys had been making remarks of 
a somewhat personal character which annoyed the gentle cow- 
boy who, catching three of them, killed two and permanently 
injured the third. 

Of this class of freebooters Irving writes : " In a little while 
the debatable ground became infested by roving bands, claiming 
from either side, and all pretending to redress wrongs and pun- 
ish political offenses ; but all prone, in the exercise of their high 
functions, to sack hen roosts, drive off cattle and lay farm houses 
under contributions ; such was the origin of two great orders of 
border chivalry, the Skinners and the Cowboys, famous in Revo- 
lutionary story. The former fought, or rather marauded, under 
the American, the latter under the British banner. In the zeal 
of service, both were apt to make blunders, and confound the 
property of friend and foe. Neither of them in the heat and 



WART-ON-THE-HUDSON. 

hurry of a foray had time to ascertain the politics of a horse or 
cow which they were driving ofif into captivity; nor when they 
wrung the neck of a rooster did they trouble their heads whether 
he crowed for Congress or King George." 

Some thirty-five years ago certain esthetic inhabitants of 
Dobbs Ferry, having long desired to change its name, finally 
succeeded in arousing enough interest to warrant the calling of 
a public meeting for the purpose of discussing the question. The 
general sentiment was that the new name should have a patriotic 
tinge. The names of Paulding and Van Wart were favorites, 
with a strong leaning toward the former. Finally one well- 
meaning but rather obtuse gentleman arose and said that he 
knew both of these men; that he did not approve of Paulding; 
that Van Wart was just as prominent in the Andre capture, and 
besides was a Christian gentleman, and he proposed that the Van 
be dropped, and the town christened Wart-on-the-Hudson. The 
proposal appears to have been made in all seriousness, but the 
ridiculousness of the situation killed the scheme, and that com- 
mon piece of clay, Dobbs, still reigns supreme. 

The fine roads and the rush of a vanishing automobile remind 
one by the very contrast of the days when the Post Road was a 
main artery of travel. 

14 



A STAGE JOURNEY. 

Here is a description of the delights of a stage coach journey : 
"A stage journey from one part of the country to another 
was as comfortless as could well be imagined. The coach was 
without springs, and the seats were hard and often backless. The 
horses were jaded and worn, and the roads were rough with 
boulders and stumps of trees, or furrowed with ruts and quag- 
mires. The journey was usually begun at 3 o'clock in the morn- 
ing, and after eighteen hours of jogging over the rough roads the 
weary traveler was put down at a country inn whose bed and 
board were such as few horny-handed laborers of to-day would 
endure. Long before daybreak the next morning a blast from 
the driver's horn summoned him to the renewal of his journey. 
If the coach stuck fast in a mire, as it often did, the passengers 
must alight and help lift it out." No wonder a man made his 
will and had prayers offered in church for his safe return before 
he ventured forth. But even such a conveyance was a luxury. 
As a rule people traveled on foot, carrying their packs on their 
backs. The well-to-do rode on horseback, and in some places 
post chaises with relays of horses every ten or twenty miles could 
be obtained. What would the ghosts of such travelers say to-day, 
should they stumble on a Pullman car or a dust-compelling devil 
wagon? Our very expressions of speech are modeled on the 

15 



COL. JOHN ODBLL— CYRUS W. FIELD. 

common, every-day things of life. Fifty or a hundred years ago 
the man who was a "slow coach" to-day would be "geared low." 

At least two of the many interesting buildings hereabouts 
are worth noting. Standing back from the road a quarter of a 
mile or so, and within the compass of the Ardsley Club grounds, 
is a plain little cottage whose clapboards show no mark of the 
planing mill. Here once lived the redoubtable Col. John Odell, 
whose father, Jonathan, languished in a British prison in New 
York because his son was fighting under the flag of freedom. 
At the time of his capture Jonathan Odell was living on the Odell 
Estate, which was later sold to a son of Alexander Hamilton. 
It is told that the Hessians hanged a negro slave of Odell's three 
separate times in an effort to make him disclose the hiding place 
of certain hogs with which the said Hessians were anxious to 
fraternise. 

A step further on stands the former residence of Cyrus W. 
Field, whose place, known as Ardsley, at one time covered some 
five hundred or more acres extending from the Post Road over 
the ridge to the Sawmill River. The house was built in the day 
of the mansard roof, and is not a particularly picturesque crea- 
tion, but every American is interested in the man who succeeded 
in linking his country with the outside world as did Cyrus W. 
Field. 

i6 



Hrvinciton to ZTarr^town. 

THE LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT HESSIAN. 



As we proceed toward the land of enchantment the surround- 
ings seem to take on a more mysterious air. Sounds that awhile 
before meant nothing more than the wind in the trees now begin 
to make one think of the rush of galloping cowboys or Hes- 
sians on mischief bent ; or, if perchance we catch through the 
gathering dusk a glint of white on the river below, may it not 
be that Flying Dutchman who, tired of the narrow bounds of the 
Tappan Zee, is trying to steal out to the open ocean while the 
constable sleeps, but the cause of such speculation is gone al- 
most before the speculation itself takes shape. However, the 
abode wherein so many of these marvels were clothed in becom- 
ing language is close at hand — Sunnyside. No better description 
of the place can be had than the artist's own : "About five-and- 
twenty miles from the ancient and renowned city of Manhattan 
* * * stands a little, old-fashioned stone mansion, all made 

17 



SUNNYSIDE. 

up of gable-ends, and as full of angles and corners as an old 
cocked hat. * * * Though but of small dimensions, yet, like 
many small people, it is of mighty spirit and values itself greatly 
on its antiquity. "= * * Its origin in truth dates back in that 
remote region commonly called the fabulous age, in which vulgar 
fa(5l becomes mystified and tinted up with delegable fi6lion. 

* * * The seat of empire now came into the possession of 
Wolfert Acker, one of the privy counsellors of Peter Stuyvesant. 

* * * During the dark and troublous times of the Revolu- 
tionary War it was the keep or stronghold of Jacob Van Tassel, 
a valiant Dutchman. * * * Years and years passed over the 
time honored little mansion. The honeysuckle and the sweet 
briar crept up its walls ; the wren and the phoebe bird built under 
its eaves. * * * Such was the state of the Roost many years 
since, at the time when Diedrich Knickerbocker came into this 
neighborhood. * * * Mementoes of the sojourn of Diedrich 
Knickerbocker are still cherished at the Roost. His elbow chair 
and antique writing desk maintain their place in the room he 
occupied, and his old cocked hat still hangs on a peg against the 
wall." 

From here to Tarrytown is but a little way. Tarwetown, 
"wheat-town." It is odd that two names so dissimilar in sound 

i8 



ANDRE CAPTURE. 

as this and Greenburg, and both of Dutch origin, should mean 
the same thing. The Indian village here was Alipconck, "the 
place of elms." Like all this region the place is full of the 
romance which Irving created, and of stirring incidents of Colo- 
nial and Revolutionary days. Chief among these are the remains 
of the Phiiipse domain, the capture of Andre and the legend of 
Sleepy Hollow, into which the old Dutch Church has been woven. 
The church yard contains some beautiful monuments to the dead. 

It is an odd coincidence that the Whitewood tree known as 
Major Andre's tree, near which the capture was effected, was 
struck by lightning the day that news was received at Tarrytown 
of Arnold's death. A monument now standing on the edge of 
the road has taken the place of the tree. We all know how the 
Skinners, Paulding, Van Wart and Williams made this capture 
which disclosed the treachery of Arnold. It was indeed a for- 
tunate combination of circumstances that led these three incor- 
ruptible men to the right spot at the right moment. 

How many times did the death knell of independence seem 
on the point of being tolled, and how many times did the god of 
chance throw his weight into the ascending scale of the Colonists. 
But for a lapse of memory, the attempt of the British in the Sum- 
mer of 1777 to capture the Hudson Valley and separate New 

19 



POCANTICO. 

England from her sisters might have been as successful as it 
proved disastrous. Lord George Germain sent Burgoyne per- 
emptory instructions to proceed down the Hudson, and the in- 
structions to Howe to move north to meet him were equally 
peremptory, but the latter were pigeonholed and forgotten for 
several weeks, and when remembered it was too late. Wash- 
ington had decoyed Howe to Pennsylvania, and Burgoyne, lack- 
ing the expected support from the south, was defeated by the 
farmers. 

Pocantico, "a run between two hills," the Dutch called it 
Sleepy Haven Kill, hence Sleepy Hollow. "Far in the foldings 
of the hills winds this wizard stream," writes the grand sachem of 
all the wizards, who wove the romance of the headless horseman 
and the luckless schoolmaster so tightly about the spot that they 
are to-day part and parcel of it. The bridge over which the 
scared pedagogue scurried was some rods further up the stream 
than is the present crossing, for in those days the Post Road ran 
along the north side of the church, and the entrance was origin- 
ally on that side of the building, while now it is on the western 
end which faces the present road. 

The name Frederick Philipse was originally written Vreedryk, 
or Vrederyck, Felypsen, the former meaning "rich in peace," 



FREDERICK PHILIPSE— GERARD C. BEEKMAN. 

indicating, we presume, the difference between his peaceful 
occupation of breaking into the new wilderness and that of his 
ancestors in Bohemia who, being persecuted for their religious 
opinions, fled to Holland, from whence Frederick emigrated to 
New Amsterdam, some time before 1653, becoming a successful 
merchant, and later a patroon. Sen, meaning son in Dutch, 
Felypsen meant the son of Felyp, Frederick the son of Philip. 
On the west bank of the Pocantico Philipse built his first 
manorial residence, called Castle Philipse on account of its 
strength and armament, it not only being loopholed for musketry, 
as was common in those days, but was also defended by several 
small cannon. All these evidences of the strenuous days of old 
have been covered by unsightly clapboards, and the place as it 
stands now looks as though it might have seen better days, but 
gives no hint of its former important station. It is related that 
in 1756 a Virginia colonel named Washington called here to pay 
his respe6ls to the beautiful Mary Philipse, but the lady saw 
nothing attradlive in the tall, ungainly countryman. In 1784, 
when the state parcelled out the confiscated lands of Philipse, this 
part fell into the hands of Gerard C. Beekman, whose wife was 
Cornelia Van Cortlandt, a connection of the Philipse family. An 
interesting incident connects this place with the Andre matter. 



THE DUTCH CHURCH. 

Some time before his capture, John Webb, one of Washington's 
aides, left a valise containing a new uniform with Mrs. Beekman, 
asking that it be delivered only on a written order. Some two 
weeks later Joshua Het Smith, whose loyalty was at that time 
regarded doubtful, called and asked for Lieutenant Webb's 
valise. Mrs. Beekman disliked the man, and refused to deliver 
it without the order, which Smith could not produce, and he rode 
away much disappointed. Andre was concealed in his house at 
this very time, and the uniform was wanted to help him through 
the American lines. Thus Mrs. Beekman forged the second link 
in the chain leading to the Andre capture. 

The little old Dutch church is believed to be the oldest church 
edifice now standing in the State. It was built in 1699 by Fred- 
erick Philipse. Irving says of it : "The sequestered situation of 
this church seems always to have made it a favorite haunt of 
troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll surrounded by locust trees 
and lofty elms, from among which its decent whitewashed walls 
shine modestly forth like Christian purity beaming through the 
shades of retirement." 

"To look upon its grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams 
seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there, at least, the 




DUTCH CHURCH, TARRYTOWN, 1699. 

Supposed to be the oldest Church building in the State. OriRinally the entrance was on the 
side facing the Post Road which then passed north of the building. 



IKVING'S GRAVE. 

dead might rest in peace," and there Irving himself rests in peace 
with a plain white stone at his head which modestly tells that 

WASHINGTON 

SON OF WILLIAM AND SARAH S. IRVING 

DIED 

NOV. 28, 1859 

AGED 76 YEARS, 7 MO. AND 25 DAYS 

North of the church and on both sides of the Post Road are 
the remains of the one-time Beekman forest, whose thickets 
once served the deer for a cover. So long ago as 1705 it was 
necessary to enact game laws for the prote6lion of these animals, 
which were even then in a fair way to being exterminated. 



25 



®00lning to Ibeeeian 1bilL 



The six miles to Ossining are largely made up of handsome 
estates lining both sides of the road. Here and there nature still 
litters the earth with weeds and bushes, or the farmer tends his 
crops, leaving a fringe of wild things to border his domains, but 
as a general thing such inelegancies are suppressed, and the road- 
side is ordered with the same precision as are the lands on the 
other side of the wall. Those pleasant little friendships with un- 
kempt nature are not so frequent as we find them further on. 
However, while there is little "delight in disorder" there are 
many beautiful places belonging to those favored with an abund- 
ance of this world's goods. Such names as Gen. John C. Fre- 
mont, Anson G. Phelps, Gen. James Watson Webb, Aspinwall 
and others are or have been of this region. Some two miles 
before we cOme to the village of Ossining stands St. Mary's 
Church, erected in 1850. Surrounded by tall trees, the Httle 
edifice looks as though it might be some mysterious "church in 

26 



OSSINING. 

the wood" of a medieval romance, and one almost expects to see 
a little bridal party dash up on horseback with no time to lose, 
in the belief that the grim old father is close on their heels. We 
naturally think of a church as a centre of population, but here 
is a cjuaint little building which the traveler comes on unexpe(5l- 
edly in a patch of woods by a rather lonely stretch of road. The 
temptation to turn aside and investigate is strong until, the wind 
rubbing one tree trunk against another, a long groan is heard 
that sends a cold shiver down the inquisitive's back and damps 
his ardor for discovery. After all it's best out in the bright open 
road where the birds sing and the sun dispels all thought of 
gloom. 

Ossining, "a stony place," was variously written Sin-sing, 
Sing Sing, Sin Sinck and Sink Sink. Spelling was an incident in 
those days, not an art. Here again we must fall back on Irving 
for our facts. He says : "A corruption of the old Indian name 
O-sin-sing. Some have rendered it O-sin-sing, or O-sing-song, 
in token of its being a great market town, where anything may 
be had for a mere song. Its present melodious alteration to Sing 
Sing is said to have been made in compliment to a Yankee 
singing master who taught the inhabitants the art of singing 

27 



BLACK HORSE TA VERN. 

through the nose," The Indian village here bore the same name 
before the Dutch appropriated the country. 

No very important events of Colonial or Revolutionary his- 
tory are recorded in immediate conne6lion with the town, though 
it is related that here is still preserved a small cannon known as 
"Old White," said to be the one which, at Teller's Point, com- 
pelled the British Vulture to slip her moorings and so leave 
Andre in the lurch. At one time mining operations were con- 
ducted at this point, but they came to naught. 

As we approach the Croton River the road takes a right- 
angled turn, down which a fingerboard points, indicating that 
Peekskill lies that way, but the old Post Road kept straight 
ahead, following the banks of the Croton until a favorable place 
for crossing occurred, when it took advantage of the opportunity 
and started back for the Hudson, in order to get around Hessian 
Hill. The marshy breadth of the Croton's mouth was probably 
too much for the bridge builders of early days. Along this road 
a short half mile is the one-time celebrated Black Horse Tavern. 
It was not only a house of refuge for travel-worn humanity, but 
was also a popular meeting place for the neighboring farmers, and 
a place of political gatherings. 

We stick to the more modern road which crosses the Croton 



VAN CORTLANDT MANOR. 

by means of two bridges landing one at the door yard of the old 
Van Cortlandt manor house. The view up the river from the 
bridge is a beautifully soft landscape. On the left stands the 
old "ferry house," so important a means of communication be- 
tween the two sides of the stream that Washington, during the 
Revolution, stationed a guard here for its protedion. The 
manor house, a modest two-story building, hidden in vines, built 
of the rough brown sandstone of the region, gives no indication 
of decrepit age. It so happened that just before my visit its 
stucco covering had been removed, disclosing to view the port- 
holes for musketry intended to discourage the too enthusiastic 
approaches of its Indian neighbors. This stucco was spread over 
the building when the grandfather of the present generation of 
Van Cortlandts brought his bride home. 

The father of the first "Lord of the Manor" was a landholder 
in the City of New Amsterdam, owning a tract along Broadway 
where now is Cortlandt St. The son was the first mayor of New 
York born in America; this was Stephanus Van Cortlandt. lie 
advanced large sums of money to the government, and as com- 
pensation obtained, in 1697, a Royal charter for "Lordship and 
Manor of Cortlandt." The present building is thought to have 
been started by Gov. Thos. Dongan, about 1683, as a hunting 

29 



VAN CORTLANDT MANOR. 

lodge, an ideal situation on the bank of the Kitchawan, as the 
Croton River was then known, prote6led alike from the north 
and east winds. 

Irving says of the family at the time of the Revolutionary 
War:— 

"Two members of this old and honorable family were con- 
spicuous patriots throughout the Revolution. Pierre Van Cort- 
landt, the father, at this time about fifty-six years of age, was a 
member of the first Provincial Congress, and President of the 
Committee of Public Safety. Governor Tryon had visited him 
in his old manor house at the mouth of the Croton, in 1774, and 
made him offers of royal favors, honors, grants of land, etc., if 
he would abandon the popular cause. His offers were nobly 
rejected. The Van Cortlandt family suffered in consequence, 
being at one time obliged to abandon their manorial residence ; 
but the head remained true to the cause, and subsequently filled 
the office of Lieutenant-Governor with great dignity." 

The history of the house records other interesting events be- 
sides those of war : From its high veranda the great Whitefield 
preached to crowds who were seated on benches on the lawn. 
The memory of this time has been kept green by a small brass 

30 



TELLER'S POINT. 

plate, recording the fa6l, which is attached to a post of the 
veranda. 

The whole air of the place is so homelike and comfortable 
that the traveler could easily pass it by never dreaming that the 
career of this vine-clad nest is one that many a more pretentious 
dwelling would be proud to own to. 

The old Van Cortlandt family cemetery is situated on a hill 
west of the house and west of the road. Here lie the remains of 
that Mrs. Beekman whose distrust of Joshua Smith prevented 
him from securing a disguise for Andre. Along the southern 
foot of this hill lies the Haunted Hollow. 

For years '"the walking sachems of Teller's Point" held 
nightly councils here, the ghosts of departed Indians, whose last 
resting place on this Point was disturbed by the white man's 
plough and spade, but their clay has long since been burned into 
bricks and their shades have scattered in all diredlions ; some of 
them no doubt looking down on us to-day from Manhattan's 
lofty skyscrapers. 

An Indian castle or fort defended Teller's or Croton Point 
from up-river tribes, and it was here that old Chief Croton died 
while defending the firesides of his people, he being the last war- 
rior to go down before the invaders. But though dead he yet 



HESSIAN HILL. 

walked, much to the inconvenience of belated travelers, more 
especially those who, having passed a friendly evening with hos- 
pitable neighbors, found it somewhat difficult to lay a straight 
course for home. However, nothing has been heard of his 
ghostship of late, and it may be that the materialistic spirit of the 
present age, which does not know a ghost when it sees one, has 
sent him off to some more happy haunting ground. 

As the road winds up and over the western slope of Hessian 
Hill, just north of Croton Landing, three panoramas follow each 
other in rapid succession, all strikingly beautiful. The first two 
are different views of Teller's or Croton Point, with Hook 
Mountain and the Palisades in the distance, that Teller's Point 
from whose banks Colonel Livingston bombarded the Vulture, 
thereby leading to the capture of Andre, by this one action sav- 
ing, possibly, the collapse of the War for Independence. From 
a further spur of the same hill comes into view the broad ex- 
panse of Haverstraw Bay with its background of jagged hills 
known as Clove Mountain and Pligh Tor, under whose shadow 
Arnold and Andre met. Bison's concise and graphic description 
of this event is worth quoting as it stands : "On a dark night 
in September, 1780, Benedict Arnold lay crouching beneath the 
trees on the bank of the Hudson a few miles below Stony Point, 

32 



ARNOLD-ANDRii MBUriKG. 

just outside the American lines. Presently the plash of oars from 
the dark, silent river broke the stillness, and a little boat bearing 
four men came to the shore. Two were ignorant oarsmen, who 
knew not what they did, the third was the steersman, one Joshua 
Smith, who lived in the neighborhood, while the fourth was a 
young and handsome man who concealed beneath his great over- 
coat the brilliant uniform of a British officer. The young man, 
Major John Andre, adjutant-general of the British army, was 
put ashore, and he and Arnold, who had long been secret cor- 
respondents, spent the night in the dense darkness beneath the 
trees. Here the plot to place West Point into British hands was 
consummated, and at the coming of dawn Andre did not return, 
as at first intended, to the English sloop of war, the Vulture, j 
which was lying in the river waiting for him, but accompanied I 
Arnold to the house of Smith, the steersman, a few miles away,/ 
Arnold returned to West Point, and Andre waited his oppor- 
tunity to reach the Vulture ; but shore batteries began firing on 
her, and Smith refused to venture out in his little boat." 



22, 



IPcek6klll anb CortIa^^t\)ille to ^allowe IbilL 



Beyond Hessian Hill the road keeps inland along the high 
ground that slopes down to Verplanck's Point, named after the 
son-in-law of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, to whose wife this part 
of the estate fell. It is worth while to walk out to the brow of 
the hill for the sake of the view and the historic memories it 
brings up. The "Kings Ferry" so often mentioned in the annals 
of the Revolution connedled this with a sandy cove on the north 
shore of Stony Point opposite — Stony Point, "a lasting monu- 
ment of the daring courage of Mad Anthony." The ferry made 
Verplanck's Point an important spot, and naturally it was forti- 
fied as well as was Stony Point. Here Colonel Livingston was in 
command in September, 1780, and it was he who, building better 
than he knew, hurried the small cannon down to Teller's Point 
which, at break of day, drove the Vulture down the river, the 
first link in the chain of events leading to the capture of Andre, 
for Smith, his guide, becoming frightened, refused to put the 

34 



VBRPLANCK'S POINT. 

Englishman on board the waiting sloop of war, as agreed, and 
instead brought him across the King's Ferry to start him on his 
way to New York on foot. 

On October 5, 1777, Sir Henry Clinton landed three thousand 
men on Verplanck's Point, apparently for the purpose of attack- 
ing Peekskill, but really with intent to deceive General Putnam, 
who was in command of the town, and for once this Connec5licut 
Yankee was fooled into doing just what the enemy wished, for 
he drew his troops back to the hills and did not know until too 
late that the English forces, under cover of a friendly fog, had 
been ferried across to the west shore for the purpose of attacking 
Fort Montgomery. Clinton was on his way north with all the 
troops that could be spared to help Burgoyne, and Putnam, who 
had the general command of the Highlands, with only fifteen 
hundred men, could not hope to cope with the superior forces 
advancing from the south, so he retired along the Post Road 
through Cortlandtville to Continental Village, the main en- 
trance by land to the Highlands, where the public stores and 
workshops were located, and from which he was compelled to 
again fall back as Sir Henry Clinton, having captured the river 
forts and burned Peekskill, advanced. 

Peekskill on the one side of the river and Dunderberg on the 

35 



PBEKSKILL. 

other guard the lower end of the Highlands. The town is named 
after the first settler, one Jan Peek, whose earliest mention in 
history is as the builder of an inn in New York City, on Broad- 
way near Exchange Place, in sixteen hundred and something. 
It seems that Peek was something of an explorer and, when 
navigating these waters, he mistook the present Peekskill Creek 
for the passage up the Hudson, entered the creek and promptly 
ran aground, and, being aground, concluded to stay. 

John Paulding, one of the three who captured Andre, received 
for his distinguished services, as was meet, a fine farm situated 
in Peekskill that had been confiscated from its royalist owner; 
thus we see that virtue is rewarded, treason punished and the 
state plays the generous role without any expense to itself. Mr. 
Andrew Carnegie himself could not have managed the affair 
better. 

In September, 1777, the village was sacked and burned by 
the British and the neighboring country was pillaged. The 
chapel of St. Peter's was ere(5led on the site of the military maga- 
zine destroyed at this time. The one historically interesting 
l)uilding that was left in the town, the old Birdsall residence, has 
gone the way of all flesh. It was Washington's headquarters 
whenever he was in this neighborhood, Lafayette dwelt under its 

36 



CORTLANDTVILLB. 

roof, one of its parlors was used by the Rev. George Whitefield in 
which to hold services, but the building protruded into the street 
and the good people concluded that rather than walk around it 
any longer they would tramp over its grave. 

In Cortlandtville is located the former residence of Gen. 
Pierre Van Cortlandt, erected in 1773. A tablet placed on the 
building says : "General George Washington with his aides 
slept in this house many nights while making Peekskill their 
headquarters in 1776, 1777 and 1778. It was the house of Pierre 
Van Cortlandt, member of Colonial Assembly, member of the 
2d, 3d and 4th Provincial Congress, President of the Committee 
of Public Safety, a framer of the State Constitution, First Lieu- 
tenant-Governor of the State of New York, Colonel of manor of 
Cortlandt Regiment." The building is rather modern in appear- 
ance, suggesting comfort rather than strenuosity. 

Here the Van Cortlandt family found a safe asylum when the 
manor house on the Croton was no longer tenable. In March, 
1777, General McDougal posted his advance guard here when the 
British took possession of Peekskill. Eighty of his men, under 
Lieutenant-Colonel Willet, receiving permission to attack some 
two hundred of the British that had taken possession of a height 
a little south of Cortlandt's, did so with such success that the 

37 



CORTLANDTVILLE. 

enemy retreated, and the entire command, some one thousand 
strong, becoming panic stricken, betook themselves to their ship- 
ping under cover of the night and sailed down stream. 

A great oak which served the purpose of a military whipping 
post, still stands just east of the Van Cortlandt house. 

The old parochial church of St. Peter's stands on the summit 
of a little hill near by, a simple frame building erected in 1766 by 
Beverly Robinson and others as the result of a visit of Mr. Dib- 
ble, of Stamford, Conn., in 1761. With him came St. George 
Talbot, who says : "The state of religion I truly found deplor- 
able enough. They were as sheep without a shepherd, a prey 
to various sectaries, and enthusiastic lay teachers ; there are 
many well wishers and professors of the church among them, 
who doth not hear the liturgy in several years." In the church 
yard stands the monument to John Paulding, one of the Andre 
captors, who was born in Peekskill. 

Just east of the Van Cortlandt house the Post Road turns 
toward the north, where one of the old mile-stones marks "50 m. 
from N. York." In the angle stands one of the inns of stage- 
coach days which was standing as long ago as 1789, as in "A 
Survey of the Roads of the United States of America," published 
by Christopher Colles in that year, the inn is put down as Dusen- 




DUSENBURY'S TAVERN, CORTLANDTVILLE. 

The right end of the building is the old end ; the lower room on this side is the one In 

which Andre was held. The wheel tracks at the left indicate the lino 

of the Old Post Road on Its way to Gallows Hill. 



CORTLANDTVJLLE. 

bury's Tavern. The author of this old-time road book may have 
been something of a joker, or he may have had a small grudge 
against the Presbyterians, as among the symbols he used, the 
one indicating a church of that denomination is so noticeably like 
a windmill as to call forth a gentle smile. The inn is now the 
dwelling of Mr. Gardiner Hollman, himself a relic of earlier days, 
who carries his eighty years with an ease that bespeaks a life of 
steady habits. He is quite ready to show the building to the 
curious and explain its interesting features. The front room on 
the right is said to have held the prisoner Andre for a short time 
when he was being taken from North Castle by way of Conti- 
nental Village to the Beverly Robinson house, Arnold's former 
headcjuarters, and used as such by Washington after the traitor 
fled. Aside from one or two old pieces of furniture, and an open 
Franklin stove, the only interesting relic the room contains is a 
small work-box which was given by Theodosia Burr to her 
friend Mrs. McDonald, of Alabama, who in turn gave it to a sister 
of the present owner. 

From now on the Post Road is all that a country road should 
be. . It plunges immediately into a thicket of tall weeds, Joe Pie 
and goldenrod mostly, which shoot up in many instances six 
feet above the ground. After crossing the creek the road begins 

41 



GALLOWS HILL. 

the steep ascent of Gallows Hill, where Putnam hanged a British 
spy m spite of Sir Henry Clinton's attempts to prevent it. This 
summary action seems to have tempered the Red-coats' curiosity, 
as "Old Put" was not bothered afterward. One of a small bunch 
of chestnut trees west of the road where it tops the hill is pointed 
out as the gallows tree, although early accounts speak of a rough 
gallows having been ereded. There is a story to the effed that 
one Hans Anderson, a farmer of the neighborhood, was the 
hangman, and that he was finally worried into his grave by the 
ghost of this same spy, who would not leave him in peace ; but 
no mention is made of the tough old General having been so 
bothered. 



42 



Continental IDUIaoc to Mlccopcc ipaes, 

A GOOD EXAMPLE OF THE POST ROAD AS IT WAS 
A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 



Continental Village lies at the northern foot of Gallows Hill. 
The British destroyed the stores the Americans were unable to 
take with them and burned the village, leaving, it is said, only 
one house standing, the property of a Tory. Whether this build- 
ing is still standing is somewhat uncertain, though one is 
pointed out as such. 

General Sir William Howe, in his dispatches to Sir Henry 
Clinton, dated at Fort Montgomery, October 9, 1777, says: 
"Major-Gen. Tryon, who was detached this morning with Em- 
merick's chasseurs, fifty yagers and royal fusiliers and regiment of 
Trumback, with a three-pounder, to destroy the rebel settlement 
called the Continental village, has just returned and reported to 
me, that he has burned the barrack for fifteen hundred men, sev- 

43 



POST ROAD. 

eral store-houses and loaded wagons. I need not point out to 
your excellency the consequence of destroying this post, as it was 
the only establishment of the rebels on that part of the Highlands, 
and the place from whence any body of troops drew their sup- 
plies." 

The place was soon reoccupied by the Americans as a point 
at which to colle6l stores, and various military encampments 
were strung along both sides of the road from here north. 

For the space of some two or three miles the road is a grass- 
grown track through a rough country. As one proceeds he can 
appreciate the difficulties that beset the retreating soldiers, laden 
with such stores from the village as they could carry with them 
on the retreat. Now and then an unkept farmhouse appears, but 
there is little Hfe; it is possible to walk as far as Nelson's Mill, 
some eight miles, without passing a team of any sort, and hardly 
any one on foot, but, like Goldsmith's village street the wayside is 
"With blossomed furze unprofitably gay." 

Joe Pie weed, as heavy-headed as a sleepy child, alternating 
with the straight stemmed goldenrod, while every wall is adorned 
with snapdragon or Virginia creeper, the scarlet product of the 
deadly nightshade, or the silvery remains of the clematis — this 
in August or September. If one goes this way in the Spring 

44 



POST ROAD. 

there is the wild azalea against the edge of the woods, and the 
woodland flowers come trooping down even to the wheel tracks. 

It is forty years since the telegraph abandoned this abandoned 
highway, and the tramps left with the telegraph poles. One old 
inhabitant says it used to take a considerable part of her time each 
day to feed the gentry who applied, for she, being afraid of them, 
never refused. To-day, over this part of the road, the tramp is as 
scarce as the stage coach. To be sure the law may have some- 
thing to do with it, for any one who lodges information against 
a tramp gets $15, and the gentleman of leisure presumably suf- 
fers accordingly, as the farmer is not likely to assess himself 
merely for the pleasure of housing lazy humanity. 

Just beyond the fifty-fourth mile-stone stands one of the old 
inns which is put down by Christopher Colles as Travers's Tav- 
ern. It still offers shelter to him who will seek, as I discovered 
when caught by a sudden shower. 

From the last hilltop, before Nelson's Mill is reached, is a 
glorious view of the "Golden Gate," the notch between Storm 
King and Breakneck, through which the Hudson flows, and, in 
summer floods of gold from the setting sun. On all sides are hills 
and valleys. It seems as though the whole world is on edge. 

Here stands sentinel a tall old milc-stonc by the road side 

45 



CLOVB CRBBK VALLEY. 

demanding of every one that passes the countersign — Wonderful ! 

Down the steep hillside the road now lunges to Nelson's Mill 
or Corner, once a relay station for the stage coach horses, and a 
mill site for many generations, and now we are looking up at 
the mountains instead of down on them. The road floats up and 
down the gentle swells of the valley's floor, each bend bringing 
into line another view of the Fishkill Mountain with a new fore- 
ground or a different framing of leaves and branches, and each 
calling aloud to the camera which gorges itself on trees and rocks 
and mountains. 

We are in the valley of the Clove Creek, under the shadow 
of the Fishkill Mountain, in a hollow where the dusk of evening 
comes early, and the gloom and solitude of the shortened day 
make one readily understand why travelers of old halted at this 
north entrance to the Highlands, rather than run the chance of 
being overtaken by the dark in the depths of its loneliness. 
Cooper could hardly have hit on a more fitting place for the ad- 
ventures of the Spy than these woods and mountains offered. 

About four miles south of Fishkill, in Wiccopee Pass, a 
bronze tablet by the roadside announces that : — 

ON THE HII,LS BACK OF THIS STONE STOOD THREE 
BATTERIES GUARDING THIS PASS, 1776-1783. 

46 



IVICCOPEB PASS. 

The hills referred to and others in the neighborhood are fifty 
to one hundred feet high, and as smoothly rounded and regular 
as though moulded in a large-sized tea cup and turned out in 
little groups, making one wonder what sort of giant children 
could have been playing here. Legend relates that long, long 
ago, even before the mighty iManitou ruled, this region was peo- 
pled by a great race as tall as the tall forest trees. They lived on 
roots and leaves and hunted the great water rats that dwelt in 
houses built of mud and sticks in the lake that filled all the coun- 
try north of the Highlands. These animals were fierce fighters, 
and dangerous even to their giant foes when the latter were 
caught at a disadvantage in the water, whither the great men re- 
paired for frequent bathing. 

It was a give-and-take world in those days. The giants would 
square accounts at the first opportunity by turning the next 
rat caught into funeral baked meat in remembrance of the 
departed brother, and there the matter, as well as the rat, ended. 
But there came a time when a swarm of the rats surprised a group 
of bathers, and there were many desolate firesides that night. 
Then a great council was called to decide on a means of revenge, 
but as they could not swim and boats were unknown, the con- 
course was like to break up with nothing accomplished when a 

47 



WICCOPEE PASS. 

daughter of the tribe arose and suggested breaking down the bar- 
rier which held back the water, thus putting the enemy on dry 
land, where he would be helpless. The plan was approved, and 
soon all were at work at the narrowest spot with trees torn from 
the hill sides and such rough tools as they could command, and 
now a small stream begins to work through which, washing out 
the earth and smaller stones, becomes a flood thundering down 
the lower valley. In a few days the region was drained and the 
enemy exterminated, but their houses remain even unto the pres- 
ent time. The present Fishkill Mountain was the "long house" of 
the watery tribe gradually solidified through the ages into the 
hardest of hard trap rock, and the little conical hills that we see in 
the Wicopee Pass were the play houses of the baby rats. But alas 
the giants, having no longer any place to bathe, began to be 
troubled by a hardening of the skin and joints, and their great 
bodies would at last fall to rise no more ; but, as if in very mock- 
ery, whenever a giant fell a spring of water would bubble from 
the ground and a rivulet would soon be searching out a path for 
itself among the rocks and woods. 

The traveler knowing nothing of the legend might suppose 
that sometime the waters swirled and eddied over this region, 
and that our symetrical little hills are deposits made at that time. 



Jlsbkill, Mappincjcr jfalle anb pouGbl^eepsie* 

ROMANCE, HISTORY AND LEGEND. 



The Post Road now passes through a fearsome piece of 
woods, coming out into the open again where the mountain 
drops quickly to the plain, and we are in the sunshine once more. 
Looking back at this time of day, about 7 o'clock of an early 
June evening, one sees a curious effect of sunlight and shadow, 
against the dark mountain background, the sun outlines with 
vivid distindlness every tree and bush or stone wall or weed 
with a silvery halo, and seems to intensify the fresh verdure until 
all nature swims in green. Soon another of the old mile-stones 
appears, as usual on the west side of the road, and opposite is a 
small granite monument which commemorates the graveyard of 
the soldier dead in the adjoining field, where there are probably 
more revolutionary dead buried than in any other spot in the 
State. This neighborhood was a headquarters for part of the 

49 



WHARTON HOUSE. 

army between 1776 and 1783. A step further on is the Wharton 
House, known to both history and romance. The building was 
used as army headquarters during the seven years that war 
raged up and down the Hudson Valley. The names of both 
Washington and Lafayette are closely associated with its history, 
and it is also the house referred to in Cooper's "Spy," from which 
Harvey Birch helps Henry Wharton to escape. Here Enoch 
Crosby, the real spy, was subjected to a mock trial by the Com- 
mittee of Safety. Crosby had given information of a band of 
Tories and allowed himself to be captured with them, was tried 
with them and, in order to keep up the deception and preserve his 
usefulness, was remanded to the church-prison with the rest. 
The Wharton House was ere6led by the Van Wyck family, and is 
still in its possession. In a wheat field across the road lies the 
fallen stump of the "Whipping Post," a monument to the meth- 
ods of correclion used in the Continental army. The next house 
to the north is said to be constru(5led of timber taken from one 
of the old barracks. 

The road over which we have been traveling was once an In- 
dian trail. Shortly before the French and Indian wars Lord 
Louden passed through this country, and in order to get his 

so 



FISHKILl. 

baggage train through, the trail became a road under his direc- 
tion. 

The Fishkill Creek, which scuttles across the level floor of the 
valley just before one enters the village seems in too much of a 
hurry to get away from its peaceful surroundings, which are 
attra6live enough to make mortals wish to linger, but which do 
not stay the brawling stream. Both the mountains and the brook 
were the Indian Matteawan, the "Council of Good Fur," but the 
Dutch christened it Vis Kill or Fish Creek, and the more musical 
native name had to give way. 

The first house on the right after crossing the stream is one 
of the Colonial relics of the place, but the principal buildings of 
interest are the Episcopal and Dutch churches. The first, being 
frame, was used as a hospital during the Revolution. The Pro- 
vincial Congress, when it was compelled to leave White Plains, 
removed to Fishkill, and at first attempted to use this church for- 
its sessions, but the place had been so befouled by flocks of 
pigeons that a move was made to the Dutch Church. It was dur- 
ing this time that Washington crossed the Delaware, and he 
sent to the Congress sitting here for reinforcements, but no troops 
could be spared from the defense of this region. The church 
bears a tablet which relates history as follows : 

51 



FISHKILL. 

"Trinity Church, organized in communion with the Church of 
England by the Rev. Samuel Seabury, 1756. The first rector 
Rev John Beardsley, Oct. 26, 1766. Reincorporated Oct. 13, 
1785, and Oct. 16, 1796. This building was erected about 1760. 
Occupied by the New York Provincial Convention, which re- 
moved from White Plains Sept. 3, 1776. Used for a military hos- 
pital by the army of General Washington until disbanded June 2, 

1783." 

The Dutch Church was stone, and was soon used as a prison 
by the Americans. Probably the most famous prisoner it con- 
tained was Enoch Crosby, the spy, the hero of Cooper's novel, 
who escaped with the help of the Committee of Safety, the only 
ones who knew his true character. The second time he was cap- 
tured the ofhcer in charge being nettled at his previous escape, 
had him guarded with extra care, but again the Committee of 
Safety lent a helping hand and Crosby was free once more. 

Fishkill, settled in 1682, is one of the old towns. It was the 
largest town in the county during the Revolution, and in 1789 
was one of the seven postofRces in the state ; but its glory has 
departed and it is now a pleasant village living in its memories of 
the past. Here lived and worked the blacksmith, J. Bailey, who 
forged General Washington's sword. Joshua Het Smith was ar- 

52 



FIRST REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH OF FISHKILL. 

Organized 1716. Building erected 1761. 

Provincial Convention met here 1776. 

Used as a military prison during the Revolution. 

Enlarged 1786. 

Interior remodeled 1806, 1820, 1854, 1882. 



WAPPINGER FALLS. 

rested here for his participation in the Arnold treason plot. The 
Dutch Church was built about 1725, its roof then sloping up from 
all four sides to a cupola, holding a bell. The window lights were 
small, set in iron frames (a good prison), and the upper story was 
pierced for muskets. This was all changed soon after the Revo- 
lution, but the stout walls still remain. 

Beyond Fishkill the Post Road traverses a high plateau whose 
fertile soil is well cultivated, a country beautiful after its kind, 
but to one fresh from the grandeur of the Highlands the stretch 
of six miles to Wappinger Falls seems but a tame affair, with 
only one of the old mile-stones left to tell the tale of long ago. 
This seemed to read "71 M. to N. York." 

A country school was having recess as I went by, the master 
sitting in the shade outside reading, while the boys were playing 
the national game and the one little girl stood by admiring their 
prowess. 

Wappinger Falls preserves the name of the Indian tribe that 
once held sway over these uplands. The falls around which the 
village has grown up are lined with fadlories and facflory ruins, 
which latter lend an added charm to the natural beauty of the 
scene, for even in a dry time water enough tumbles down these 
rocks to make the place a delight. The village contains an in- 

55 



LIVIXGSTOX HOUSE. 

teresting relic of the past in the old homestead of Peter Mesier, a 
Xew York merchant^ who settled here about the close of the 
Revolution- 

Between here and Poughkeepsie the trollev plies. Its tracks 
run through the grass by the roadside, the poles blend with the 
trees, and this usuallT tmsightiv modem convenience hardly mars 
the beauty of the landscape, 

Xot a mile-stone was to be seen on this piece of roail, bat 
down by the river, at a comer of the Livingstone Mansion, evi- 
dently taken from its original station on the old road nearby, 
and marked '"So M. from X. York," reposes one of the lost 
guardians of the highway. The stones appear to have all been 
set along the west side of the road, so that they were cor-pass 
on a cloudy day as well as distance markers, and a man had but 
to know his right hand from his left to be sure of his direction. 

The Livingstone hotise, built about 1714, stood on a point on 
the river bank on what is now the southern edge of Poughkeepsie. 
Facing the south it overlooks the river for miles, while in front 
was a sheltered little harbor for river craft, but this has been 
filled in by the raanufacruring concern that now owns the prop- 
erty, and nothing is as it vrz^s, except the house. During the 
Revolution the place was the home of Henry Livingstone, whose 

56 




LIVINGSTON HOUSE, POUQHKEEPSIE. 

Old double Dutch door. Jnst to the left of this door is the shot hole made by 
the British sloop of war Vulture in October, 1777. 



POUGHKEUPSIE. 

well-known patriotism led the British, when ascending the river 
in October, 1777, to bombard the building, as they did so many 
others. One of its shingles, pierced by a shot at that time, has 
been left in place as a reminder of the incident. It also draws 
attention to the difference between the hand-split shingles of 
those days and the machine-sawed ones of the present. 

Poughkeepsie is the Apo-keep-sinck of the Indians, the 
"pleasant and safe harbor" where canoes were safe from wind 
and wave. The name is said to be spelled some forty-two differ- 
ent ways in the old town records. The "safe harbor" was made 
so by rocky blufifs proje6ling into the river; that on the south 
being known to the Dutch as Call Rock, though it did not sound 
like that in the vernacular. From this rock old Baltus Van 
Kleeck and his neighbors were wont to hail passing sloops for 
news or passage. 

An Indian legend associated with the little cove here has the 
same comfortable and satisfying outcome as the old-fashioned 
romance, when it was not so necessary to be realistic as in the 
present day. A war party of the Delawares, after a successful 
raid on their neighbors, the Pequods, reached this spot on the 
return journey, laden with spoils and captives, among the latter 
a young chief who, after the manner of most Indian tribes, was 

59 



INDIAN LEGEND. 

offered the choice of joining the tribe of his foes or suffering 
death by torture. Being a Pequod Patrick Henry he chose the 
latter, and preparations were made for his demise, when a beauti- 
ful maiden interfered. She was also a captive from the same 
tribe, and much in love with her doomed tribesman. During the 
delay thus caused the party was unexpe6ledly attacked by a band 
of Hurons, and the maiden fell prize to the latter. The chief 
escaped, and disguising himself as a wizard, visited the Huron 
camp where, strange to say, the maiden promptly fell ill upon the 
arrival of the strange medicine man, who was employed to effe6l 
a cure. They fled under cover of the dark, appropriating a handy 
canoe for the purpose, and the Hurons followed in the next boat, 
but the Pequod, landing his beloved at the mouth of the Minna- 
kee Creek, turned on his pursuers and, like the true hero of 
legend, drove them off single handed. The lovers returned 
home, married, and lived happily ever after. 

Poughkeepsie, on account of its central position, was early 
chosen as the county seat, and became the scene of many stirring 
incidents during the stirring times of '76. But few mementoes 
of those days are left, however. The Van Kleeck house, at one 
time a tavern, used by the Dutchess County Committee as a 
meeting place in 1774 to eled; delegates to the first Continental 

60 



BATTLE OF THE GIANTS. 

Congress, has disappeared. The Legislature in its migrations 
around the state met here in Jaunary, 1778, at the call of Gov- 
ernor Clinton, Clinton himself, during this time, occupied the 
Clear Everett House, which is still standing on Main Street, and 
is open to the public as a museum. 

The great struggle which was to decide whether New York 
should join the newly formed National Government was fought 
out in Poughkeepsie. On June 17, 1788, the Convention of the 
People of the State met to deliberate on the new Constitution. 
Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and Chancellor Livingston, a 
magnificent trio of pleaders, were the principal speakers in favor 
of the Union, while Governor George Clinton and others, whose 
names are not familiar except to students of history, headed the 
opposition. New York separated New England from the South, 
and was necessary to the Union, but there was a powerful party 
headed by Governor Clinton which opposed the plan. The 
Governor, in fa6l, had the majority with him, and when Hamilton 
and the others carried the convention by only one vote, it was 
a greater vidlory than the narrow margin would indicate. 
Poughkeepsie was a "safe harbor" in which to build ships, and it 
was here, in 1775-6, that the frigates Congress and Montgomery 
of the Continental navy were built under the supervision of Cap- 
tains Lawrence and Tudor. 

61 



1b^bc pari?, Staatsburg anb IRbinebec??. 



Leaving Poiighkeepsie the intervening six miles to Hyde 
Park are so park-like that the place seems to come naturally by 
its name. The road is of the best, the bordering fields are under 
a high state of cultivation, interspersed with groves of beautiful 
trees, through whose aisles are to be seen occasional glimpses 
of the Hudson and, on a clear day, the distant Catskills that, like 
low-lying clouds, top the nearer hills of the middle distance. The 
place is named for Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, Governor of 
the Province at the beginning of the Eighteenth Century. Jaco- 
bus Stoutenburg, the first settler, built a stone house which still 
stands on the east side of the road in the southern edge of the 
village. It has the reputation of having been a Washington head- 
quarters, and is a fine example of a Colonial farm house. Only 
once during the Revolution was there anything approaching a 
battle in Dutchess County, and that occurred here during 
Vaughan's raid up the river, when he burned the landing and a 

62 



STAATSBURG. 

shop or two. He was opposed by a small body of Americans 
whom he bombarded from the river with no serious results. 

James K. Paulding, author, and Morgan Lewis, Revolution- 
ary general and chief justice of the state, once lived in Hyde 
Park, as did Dr. Samuel Bard, Washington's physician, whose 
dwelling is placed in Christopher Colles's road book, previously 
mentioned, as situated on the east side of the Post Road, between 
the eighty-eighth and eighty-ninth mile-stones. 

The next ten miles to Rhinebeck through Staatsburg covers 
a picturesque country, sometimes too rough for much cultiva- 
tion, but all the more attracT;ive to the eye on that very account. 

Staatsburg or Pawlings Purchase : The earliest owner of this 
region that I find mentioned in local histories was Henry Pawl- 
ing, who died in 1695. His heirs sold the property in May, 1701, 
to Dr. Samuel Staats, of New York City, and another. This 
was the son of Major Abram Staats, of Albany, who figured 
largely in the early history of Columbia County. The only man 
of note living here during Revolutionary days was Major John 
Pawling, a friend of Washington and an adtive patriot. His stone 
house, built in 1761, still stands on the Post Road. 

Ryn Beck, Rein Beck, Rhynbeek, Reinebaik, Rhinebeck, was 
the name at first applied to that region back from the river and 

(^3 



KIPSBERGHN. 

located on the property of William Beekman, which was occupied 
by the ''High Butchers," while in Kipsbergen, on the river bank, 
lived the ''Low Butchers." 

In 1710 Colonel Robert Hunter, Governor of the Province, 
came over with a considerable colony of Palatines from the Rhine 
country, some of whom settled on the Beekman property as 
above, and are said to have given the place its name, which first 
appears in a deed of 1714. 

Kipsbergen : There is no evidence to show that any one set- 
tled here before 1700, though the region was purchased from the 
Esopus Indians as early as 1686 by Jacobus and Hendrick Kip, 
The Kips are said to have been great believers in large families, 
but, in spite of this, the local chronicler states that a few years 
ago there was but one of the name left in the territory of ancient 
Kipsbergen, and it is said that some of the land he possessed 
had never known any owner but a Kip or an Indian. To-day 
Kipsbergen is only found on the older maps. 

Landsman Kill may have been the boundary line between the 
High and Low Butchers, Rhinebeck and Kipsbergen. The name 
obtains either because its water power was reserved for the 
"Landsman" or landlord, or because one Caspar Landsman, 
whose name appears in the early records may have lived along its 

64 



KIPSBBRGBN. 

banks. The stream once ran a grist mill for Gen. Richard Mont- 
gomery. 

A very interesting side excursion here, of some six or seven 
miles, starts toward the river from the hotel corner in Rhinebeck, 
and comes out on the Post Road again a half mile or so south 
of the starting point. It afifords v^onderful views of the Catskills 
and the Hudson, the Shawungunk and lesser mountains toward 
the south. The property owners do not welcome the stranger 
within their gates, but he is allowed to look over the fence to the 
views beyond. 

Where the road turns south on the river bluff is the entrance 
to the Kip place, Anckany, named for the Indian chief with whom 
the original Kip bartered for this property. An attractive old 
stone house stands on the roadside here, but a quarter of a mile 
further on is the place that, of all others, along the Post Road, 
retains the old-time atmosphere, the "Heermance" place, built 
on Hendrick Kip's south lot in 1700. This is the house that Loss- 
ing says was ere(5led by William Beekman. The place soon 
(1716) passed into the possession of Hendricus Heermance, and 
in due course to Henry Beekman, whose daughter became the 
mother of Chancellor Livingston. 

A distindl Hne on the east end of the present building seems 

65 



RHINECLIFF. 

to indicate that the original house was very small; the heavy- 
sashes and the distorted little window panes of this old part read 
a clear title back to the early days, which is duly confirmed by the 
iridescent condition of the glass. Under the eaves, looking 
toward the river, were once two portholes ; no indications remain 
of one, but the other is a round opening large enough for the 
muzzle of a small cannon, but so close to the roof as to make it 
seem improbable that it was ever intended for purposes of de- 
fense. The present tenant remembers when this was a jagged 
hole without form or comeliness, though at present it is a clean, 
round opening, and this suggests that there may be something in 
Lossing's story that the hole was made by a cannon ball from one 
of General Vaughan's sloops of war in 1777, though local au- 
thorities do not appear to place much credence in this theory. 

The road continues south for some two miles through and 
beyond Rhineclifif, traversing beautiful woods bordering Ex-Gov- 
ernor Morton's grounds, but before entering the woods comes a 
delightful outlook toward Kingston and its mountain back- 
ground that is all the more pleasing for its unexpedledness. 
Still further, and opposite a schoolhouse, a road strikes off 
toward the south, and here is the entrance to Wilderclifif. 

The Rev. Freeborn Garrettson, being invited to Rhinebeck 

66 




THE KIP-HEERMANCE-BEEKMAN-LIVINGSTON HOUSE, RHINEBECK. 

The spot at the left under the eaves over the last window is the disputed loophole 



RHINEBBCK. 

to preach, met Catherine Livingston while there, and in 1793 they 
were married. Six years later they purchased a place on the 
banks of the Hudson, calling it Wildercliff — Wilder Klipp, a 
Dutch word meaning wild man's cliff, from the fa6l that early 
settlers found on a smooth rock on the river shore a rough 
tracing of two Indians with tomahawk and calumet. Garrettson 
was educated in the Church of England, but left it to become a 
Methodist ; a man of strong personality, he soon rose to a promi- 
nent place in the church. Being a native of Maryland, he was 
naturally a slave owner, but becoming convinced that slavery 
was bad, he set his blacks free. Wildercliff was the most noted 
gathering place in the country for Methodists, and the house 
was always full. His daughter, Mary, kept up the traditions of 
the place, and it is said such entertainment kept her poor. 

The view down the river from here is something never to be 
forgotten ; the dazzling eft"e6l of the sun on the water, the hills of 
the further shore, and the grand expanse of the pidlure which is 
only limited by the condition of the atmosphere, must be seen to 
be appreciated. 

Returning toward the Post Road the highway passes through 
the Camp Meeting Woods, where the Rev. Mr. Garrettson in- 

69 



RHINBBBCK. 

augurated those camp meetings which have made this spot as 
sacred to the Methodist heart as is Wildercliff itself. 

In the angle formed by the return road and the Post Road is 
an extensive estate — Grasmere — which was planned and begun by 
Gen. Richard Montgomery who, however, did not live to enjoy 
the fruits of his labor. His widow finished the house, but dwelt 
here for a short time only. The house was burned in 1828 and 
rebuilt and enlarged in 1861-2. The Montgomerys originally 
lived in a small cottage situated on the Post Road near the 
northern end of the village. The house has disappeared, but the 
fa(5l is commemorated in the present name of that portion of the 
highway. 

A pleasant little story is told of General Montgomery's last 
days in Rhinebeck. His last Sunday at home was spent with his 
brother-in-law, Livingston. When the General and his wife 
were about to leave he thrust into the ground a willow stick he 
had been carrying, remarking with a laugh that they could let it 
grow as a reminder of him until he came back. The General 
never returned, but the stick grew to a great tree which has ever 
since been known as the Montgomery Willow. 

At Pink's Corner, in the northern edge of Rhinebeck, stands 
the "Stone Church" of the Lutherans, built some time during the 

70 



PINK'S CORNER. 

Revolution, but the church site is much older, as there are grave 
stones in the burial ground dated as far back as 1733. The Post 
Road sweeps around the church, and as one approaches from the 
south it looks as though he must needs go to church or take to 
the fields. 



71 



IReb 1boo{^ to Stone riDUL 



It was thick weather when I traveled the country between 
Rhinebeck and Race Place, and the mist hid the distant hills and 
dulled the nearby Autumn tints, with now and then a shower to 
make the roads the better for the sprinkling. All nature had 
taken the veil, and there was little to see beyond the adjoining- 
fields, and these, lacking the magic touch of the sun, were but 
dull companions. The towns, however, kept jogging past at 
frequent intervals. Red Hook being first on the list, the first 
mention of which is in 175 1, when certain baptisms are recorded 
as occurring in Roode Hoek. The place is said to have its name 
from the fa6l that a marsh covered with ripe cranberries was the 
first thing that caught the Dutch eye in this spot. As one passes 
through the town he sees a guide-board pointing to Barrytown 
on the river, some three or four miles away, where that Gen. 
John Armstrong once lived, the author of those celebrated ad- 
dresses published to the army at Newburg, which might have 

72 



UPPER RED HOOK. 

resulted in trouble among the troops had it not been for Wash- 
ington's level head. 

There are some old buildings in Red Hook, but none of his- 
toric interest. It was here that I passed the last of the old brown 
sandstone mile-stones ; above here they are of some white stone 
that looks like coarse marble, and from their general illegibility- 
are evidently not as well fitted to stand the rigorous northern 
climate as are their brown brothers from the south. 

Upper Red Hook : The recorded history of most of these 
towns begins with the early church records. When the popula- 
tion grew dense enough to warrant it, a new church organization 
would be formed to accommodate those living in a neighborhood 
distant from the nearest house of worship, and as soon as this 
happened the good dominie or the scribe of the church would 
begin to record history ; so of Upper Red Hook — all we know of 
its early beginnings, starting with a record of baptisms in De- 
cember, 1785, comes from this source. 

The road now passes into Columbia County, where every- 
thing is, was, and ever shall be, Livingston. The family manor 
is on the river bank, six miles away, but the family, like the 
locusts for number, has spread up and down the river for a hun- 
dred miles or more. 

7Z 



ROBERT LIVINGSTON. 

In this county the Township of Livingston contains the vil- 
lages of Claremont, after the manor on the river; Johnstown, 
after John Livingston ; and Linlithgow, after the old home in 
Scotland. Dutchess County knows them and knows them well, 
likewise Westchester, while Rensselaer, on the north, counts 
them among her prominent citizens. 

It appears that human nature was much the same two hun- 
dred years ago as at present. It is said of Robert Livingston, 
first lord of the manor, that he "was shrewd, persistent and very 
acquisitive ; his zeal in this diredlion leading him sometimes to 
adopt questionable methods to advance his interests. He always 
exerted himself to obtain riches and strove continually to pro- 
mote his family." But we have scripture for it that "men will 
praise thee w^hen thou doest well to thyself." In March, 171 1, 
Lord Clarendon wrote: "I think it unhappy that Colonel Hun- 
ter (Governor of the Province) at his first arrival fell into so ill 
hands, for this Levingston has been known many years in that 
province for a very ill man. * * * j am of opinion that if the 
substance proposed be allowed, the consequences will be that 
Levingston and some others will get estates, the Palatines will 
not be the richer." 

The anti-rent troubles which occupied the attention of the 

74 



ANTI-RENT TROUBLES. 

state for one hundred and one years began on the Livingston 
Estate in the Fall of 1751. The tenants first negledled, then 
refused to pay rent. The boundary line between New York and 
Massachusetts was in dispute, both Provinces claiming this ter- 
ritory; and the malcontents, taking advantage of this to get 
some sort of title to their farms from the "Committee of the 
General Court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay," defied 
Robert Livingston Jr., the then proprietor, and a hard time he 
had of it to deal with both the discontented farmers and the gov- 
ernment of the adjoining Province, New York being slow to take 
up the cudgels in his behalf. 

From here the trouble spread to the Van Rensselaer and 
other manors, resulting in riots and small-sized warfare, with 
now and then the murder of a sherifif on the one side or an anti- 
renter on the other. The matter got into state politics and 
finally, in 1846, the tenants eleded their Governor, and in 1852 
the Court of Appeals decided in favor of the tenants, and the 
trouble was laid to rest. 

Among the notables of Columbia County was Samuel J. 
Tilden, who was born and raised here, but who early gravitated 
to New York City. The local historian also sets great store by 
the Hon. Elisha Williams who, during the first quarter of the 

75 



FIRST "STAGE-WAGGONS". 

Nineteenth Century, was the bright particular star of the Cokim- 
bia County Bar. 

In 1786 the first systematic attempt to run stages over the 
Post Road appears to have been made by three Columbia County 
men, Isaac Van Wyck, Talmage Hall and John Kinney, as in 
that year the state granted to these men the exclusive right "to 
erect, set up, carry on and drive stage-waggons" between New 
York and Albany on the east side of Hudson's River, etc., fare 
limited to 4 pence per mile, trips once a week. Right here it is 
interesting to note that in 1866 Lossing wrote of the Hudson 
River Railway that "more than a dozen trains each way pass over 
portions of the road in the course of twenty-four hours." 

Nevis is little more than a cross-roads. Claremont a strag- 
gling village of no moment; further on the road crosses the 
Roeloff Jansen Kill over a bridge that looks as though it must 
have heard the rumble of many a stage coach. 

Some newspaper antiquarian says : — 
"Kill seems to be a Low Dutch word of American coinage. I 
have never found the word kill for brook in Low Dutch or Low 
German writings. I think they originally pronounced it 'kiill' 
(cool), and to a people transplanted from a low country to a 
mountainous one, where the water of the brooks was cool even 

76 



JOHNSTOWN. 

in midsummer, the suggestion may be plausible. The Low Dutch 
have 'vliet' (fleet) for stream. The German for streaming is 
'stromen.' Hamburg has its numerous fleets or canals. The 
Low German of the Liinenburger Helde calls a brook a streak or 
a 'beek.' Note the word Beekman.' " 

A hundred years or more ago, when they were naming things 
in these parts. Blue Store was blue store, and they keep up the 
tradition faithfully to-day. Everything except what nature tints 
is the favorite color. This was one of the principal stopping 
places on the Post Road, but it has sadly dwindled since the old 
days. 

Johnstown contains three Livingston houses, built by various 
members of this omnipresent family. The one north of the vil- 
lage stands on a commanding hill, and looks from the road like a 
handsome place. In 1805 there were twenty public houses in 
this place, even members of the reigning family consenting to 
take in the sheckels over the bar. 

It has been interesting to see the chickens scurry for cover 
whenever a noisy flock of blackbirds passes overhead on its way 
to the southland. They seemed to think, if chickens think, that 
all the hawks in Christendom were swooping down on their de- 
voted heads, and stood not on the order of their going. 

77 



RACE PLACE. 

Race Place is a half mile off the road, but being garnished 
with a hotel 1 went there for the night. The village centre con- 
sists of two dwellings, two blacksmith shops and the hotel, which 
carries the legend "Race Place Hotel, 1700," and its interior 
bears out the aged suggestion. The parlor floor has sagged a 
foot or so, due to the crowds that have assembled here during 
past country balls. The ballroom is on the second floor, where 
one would naturally expect to find bedrooms, and the proprietor 
proudly announced that as many as sixty couples had danced 
here at once ; there must have been some hearty bumps during 
the process. There are three bedrooms tucked away in recesses 
at the rear. It was my lot to sleep in a feather bed under a 
mountain of patchwork quilts with never a care for Jack Frost 
sitting on the window ledge outside. But, oh ! what a difference 
in the morning, when I must climb out of that nice, warm nest 
to shut the window, catching a scrap of conversation in doing so, 
the burden of which was, "ice an inch thick." Think of shaving 
and washing in water that has spent the night in such company ! 

The proprietor of the hotel thinks walking through the coun- 
try is all right and perfe(5lly safe provided the traveler keeps 
away from those large hotels where they burn gas. Gas is dan- 
gerous. Two of his friends and neighbors went on a visit to 

78 



STONB MILL. 

Albany and, as he put it, came home in pine boxes. Keep away 
from gas-lit hotels and you are all right. The kitchen was the 
only place in the house where an overcoat was not de rigeur, and 
there the evening was passed with the family. There was much 
edifying conversation and considerable speculation over a stuffed 
olive which the daughter of the house had brought home from 
school ; the housewife feared to taste it and the good man had 
no curiosity to gratify. 

Stone Mill, on Claverack Creek, so named because of the old 
stone mill built in 1766, is a postofifice, but why, in these days of 
rural free delivery, is not quite clear, as the miller has but two or 
three neighbors who live in sight. 



79 



Clavcrack anb Ibubson. 



Claverack, Clover-reach — the town is one of the oldest — was 
once the county seat, until Hudson captured the prize. With 
what scorn must the staid Dutchmen have looked on the hustling 
Yankees who almost built the greatest city of the region over 
night. 

As early as 1629 the Hollanders looked on this land and found 
it good. It was part of the Van Rensselaer grants, this region in 
time coming to be known as the Lower Manor. The settlers 
here appear to have come with money and servants, and to have 
been better provided for than most of those who broke into the 
wilderness. Early descriptions suggest a land flowing with milk 
and honey. Deer were so plenty that one could be had from the 
Indians for a loaf of bread ; turkeys, pheasants, quail, hares and 
squirrels were everywhere ; forest trees were festooned with 
grape vines ; blackberries, strawberries, wild plums and nut trees 
abounded, and the streams were full of most excellent fish. 

80 




COURT HOUSE, CLAVERACK, 1786. 

The scene of some of Alexander Hamilton's early forensic 



CLAVERACK. 

The soil was fertile, and the community soon became a flour- 
ishing one, and the centre of interest and the county seat. The 
fine courthouse, ere6led in 1786 and still standing, was the scene 
of some notable legal contests, the most memorable being the 
trial of Harry Croswell, editor of the Hudson Balance, in 1804, 
charged with libel upon President Jefferson. The prosecution 
was handled by Ambrose Spencer, Attorney-General, and the 
newspaper man was defended by William H. Van Ness and 
Alexander Hamilton, whose eloquence failed to save the accused. 
In 1805 Hudson became the county seat, and the courthouse was 
abandoned to private use. 

The village still contains a number of notably fine specimens 
of Colonial architedlure, one of which is the Ludlow house, built 
in 1786. The present Ludlow, a grandson of Robert Fulton, hav- 
ing some money and much leisure, has turned the old place into a 
Fulton museum. The Miller house, formerly Muldor, an inter- 
esting relic of the year 1767, is known as the Court Martial 
House, it having been used for the trial and its cellar for the im- 
prisonment of delinquents during the Revolution, the owner 
himself being among those who suffered, he being given the 
choice of paying $1,000 or serving two months. This appears to 
have been because the gentleman shirked his military duties. 

83 



CLAVBRACK. 

His thoughts on the subje6l of being haled a prisoner to his own 
cellar do not appear to have been recorded ; possibly they would 
not look well in print, as it was written by an early traveler 
through this region that the inhabitants were much "addi6led to 
misusing the blessed name of God," Mr. Miller, if inclined that 
way, certainly was afforded every opportunity. Other attra6live 
places are the Webb house, eredled about 1790; the Old Stone 
House, on the Post Road, formerly an inn, said to be haunted by 
the ghost of a murdered pedler, and the Dutch Church, 1767, in 
the northern edge of the village. In fa6l, buildings a hundred 
years old are too frequent to excite remark. Gen. James Wat- 
son W>bb, whose father. Gen. Samuel B. Webb, was wounded 
on Bunker Hill, was born here, as was Judge William P. Van 
Ness, Aaron Burr's second in the Hamilton duel, and many an- 
other man known to fame. 

It is but a short distance to Hudson, whose history is so in- 
terestingly different from that of the other towns of the region 
that a few words concerning it may not be out of place, even if the 
Post Road does pass by on the other side. Here, in 1783, came 
certain Quakers from Providence and Newport, Nantucket and 
Edgartown. It seems that the British cruisers had crippled the 
whaling industry and other marine ventures in which these en- 

84 



HUDSON. 

terprising gentlemen were engaged, and they sought a more 
secluded haven from which to transact their business. Some of 
them brought, on the brig "Comet," houses framed and ready 
for immediate erec^tion, but before placing them these methodical 
Quakers first laid out the town in regular form, establishing high- 
ways, and not allowing them to develop from cow paths, as was 
the honest Dutch fashion. A committee was appointed "to sur- 
vey and plot the city," and another to see that the streets were 
given suitable names. 

The settlers promptly opened clay pits, burned bricks, built a 
first-class wharf, and were regularly trading with New York 
within a year after they landed. A canoe ferry satisfied the ear- 
lier settlers, but "a gunwaled scow" was none too good for the 
new comers. 

In 1785 it was the second port in the state; two ship yards 
were established, and a large ship, the Hudson, was nearly ready 
for launching. The fame of its hustle was attra6ling people from 
every side. March 31, 1785, the first newspaper was issued; 
April 22, 1785, a legislative adl incorporated the place into a city ; 
and by January, 1786, they had finished an aquedu6l to bring in 
an abundant supply of pure water from two miles back in the 
country. 

85 



POST ROAD. 

In 1790 it was made a port of entry. In 1793 the Bank of 
Columbia was chartered; in 1796-7 the city issued small bills 
and copper coins. 

Hudson was incorporated the third city in the State, was the 
third port of entry, and had one of the three banks in the State. 
Once it started on the down grade, however, its "decline and 
fall of¥" was equally rapid. 

Now to get back to the Post Road, where the pace is not 
quite so hot-foot. As the next town is Kinderhook, some four- 
teen miles away, there is plenty of time to view the beauties of 
nature and fill one's nostrils with its rich perfumes. Most of the 
year's work in the fields is finished; here and there the shocks 
are being overhauled for the corn, which is shucked as gathered, 
while the pumpkins are still accumulating sunshine for the golden 
Thanksgiving pie. From the barn yards come the pounding of 
the steam thresher or the creak of a windlass, suggesting that 
the hay crop is being baled. Everything is busy but the cows, 
who evidently do not like frosting on their cake and, having the 
day before them, can afiford to wait till the good sun comes along 
to undo the work which has kept Jack Frost so busy all night. 

The Catskills or Blue Mountains, as they are known from this 
distance, fill the western horizon, while the beautiful landscapes 

86 



POST ROAD. 

sloping down toward the river are so exquisite that the traveler 
involuntarily pauses to take it all in. For a goodly portion of the 
time the road keeps well up along a side hill, giving an extensive 
view over the valley beneath and to the mountains beyond — the 
autumn colors and softness are like the fairy dreams of child- 
hood. With the blood dancing under the influence of the brisk 
morning air, walking is a luxury, and the glow that comes with 
the exercise, as well as every sight and sound, a new found joy. 

The people hereabouts, while used to all sorts of freaks, can 
hardly understand how one can idly walk through the country 
with no higher ambition than the taking of a picture here and 
there, and many are the questions to be answered as to the why- 
ness of the whichness, the old farmer generally going on with a 
dubious shake of the head, convinced that there is a screw loose 
somewhere. 

A farmer, on whose load of potatoes I rode into Kinderhook, 
thinks farming doesn't pay — would have been better off if he had 
worked at days' work all this time. He was cheerful, however, 
and wholly free from care; his horses were not matched, one 
doing ail the pulling, the other all the sojering, and they went 
their own gait without interference from him. "Apples ! Why 
apples aren't worth picking this year." It happened that I fell in 

87 



FARMER FOLK. 

with the other kind near Stone Mill. He made $i,ooo from 
apples alone last year; would not make so much this season, 
but they were well worth the gathering ; there was money in the 
ground for him. The individual seems to count in farming, same 
as in everything else. 

Just out of Claremont a young fellow was thrown from his 
runabout, his horse being frightened at an automobile, and it 
was only the quickness of the chauffeur that saved him from 
being run over. Did he curse the rich man's machine ? Not he ! 
His only idea was to find another and show his "new animal" 
who was master ! Aside from this irritating feature, the whole 
aflfair was a huge joke on him. He was as handsome and whole- 
some looking as good health and an outdoor life could make a 



Iklnberbook, 



Some two miles out of Kinderhook stands Lindenwald, to 
which Ex-President Van Buren retired. The house was built by 
Judge William P. Van Ness, previously mentioned. Washington 
Irving was a welcome and frequent guest in the Van Ness house- 
hold, and it was in this neighborhood that he became acquainted 
with Jesse Merwin, school teacher, prototype of Ichabod Crane 
in the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The two men were the best 
of friends, and the caricature does not seem to have cooled their 
pleasant relations. The schoolhouse stands on the roadside, 
somewhat nearer the village; at least the building pointed out 
as such is there, but in a letter to Merwin, Irving regrets that the 
old schoolhouse is torn down "where, after my morning's literary 
task was over, I used to come and wait for you, occasionally, 
until school was dismissed. You would promise to keep back 
the punishment of some little tough, broad-bottomed Dutch boy, 



ICHABOD CRANE. 

until I could come, for my amusement — but never kept your 
promise." 

The following notice of the death of "Ichabod Crane" ap- 
peared in the Westchester Herald for November 30, 1852 : 

"Jesse Merwin died at Kinderhook on the 8th instant, at the 
age of seventy years. Mr. Merwin was well known in this com- 
munity as an upright, honorable man, in whom there was no 
guile. He was for many years a Justice of the Peace, the duties 
of which office he discharged with scrupulous fidelity and con- 
scientious regard to the just claims of suitors, ever frowning 
upon those whose vocation it is to "foment discord and perplex 
right." At an early period of his life, and while engaged in 
school teaching, he passed nmch of his time in the society of 
Washington Irving, then a preceptor in the family of the late 
Judge Van Ness, of this town. 

"Both were engaged in congenial pursuits and, their resi- 
dences being only a short distance apart, the author of the 'Sketch 
Book' frequently visited the 'Old Schoolhouse,' in which 'Squire 
Merwin' was employed m teaching the young idea how to shoot, 
and subsequently immortalized his name by making him the hero 
of one of his inimitable tales, 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.' " 
A step further on, and across the highway, stands the Katrina 

90 




THE VAN ALLEN OR KATRINA VAN TASSEL HOUSE, KINOERHOOK, 1717. 

Used as a background by Washington Irving in his Sleepy Hollow legend. 



KATRINA VAN TASSEL HOUSE. 

Van Tassel house, on whose blooming young mistress the 
Yankee pedagogue was wont to cast longing eyes ; this is the old 
Van Allen house, built in 1717, says one, in 1735 according to an- 
other — a plain building whose Holland bricks arc still good, 
though somewhat the worse for wear. 

Soon the road crosses the Kinderhook Creek into the village 
by an ancient covered bridge which has echoed to the thunder 
of many an old "stage-wagon." The crossing is rather a long 
one, resulting in two bridges with an interval of open between 
them. Down below the stream rolls lazily along while the cattle, 
standing at ease, seem to catch its indolent spirit. These 
streams, affording opportunity for water power, appear to have 
drawn the settlers away from the banks of the great river, and 
thus the towns grew up well inland from its shores. Between 
Staatsburg and Greenbush, a matter of fifty-six miles, we find 
only five towns on the river's edge, while back, along the Post 
Road, or in its immediate vicinity, are some twenty villages both 
great and small. 

Kinderhook — Children's Corner — as musical and attradive a 
name as one could ask. It is said that a Dutchman once lived 
hereabouts whose progeny was so numerous as to attract atten- 

93 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 

tion, even in the days of large families, and so the place came by 
its name as a matter of course, but the more probable legend is 
to the effe6l that when the Dutch first sailed up the river so many 
Indian children lined the banks or were paddling in the water 
that the visitors pronounced the magic words that are commemo- 
rated in the present name. 

Being a stranger in a strange land, I early sought out the 
good Dr. X., who did not at first seem as genial as anticipation 
had pictured, but finding, as the purpose of the call was ex- 
plained, how truly harmless was the intent, he suggested a tour 
of the village in his company, conHding as we reached the outer 
air that he was so glad it was not a book agent who had called ; 
that he was delighted to do all he could, and so it proved, for he 
could do and did all and more than most would feel called upon 
to do for the casual stranger. 

Abraham Van Buren, father of Martin, was one of the early 
tavern keepers of Kinderhook, and here the son was born and 
educated to the law. His dwelling place is pointed out, and it is 
truly the site but not the substance, as the old building has fallen 
victim to the march of improvement. 

Elson says of Martin Van Buren : — 

"He was a man of greater individuality and ability than is 

94 



PARSON A GB—FOR T. 

generally put to his credit by historians. * =^= * In the Cabinet 
of Jackson he was by no means a figurehead even there, for it 
was largely due to his skill that Jackson made the two brilliant 
strokes in his foreign policy. * * * Van Buren has been pro- 
nounced the cleverest political manager in American history, and 
no other man has held so many high political offices. He was 
small of stature, had a round, red face and quick, searching eyes. 
He was subtle, courteous and smooth in conversation." 

As early as 1670 Hollanders settled here. The first interest- 
ing house one meets on entering the village from the south is the 
old Dutch parsonage which, being of brick, was a tower of 
strength against the Indians as well as the Devil. The Indians 
raided this region in 1755 and visited the neighborhood of Kind- 
erhook at a time when the men were away, but their stout-hearted 
wives and daughters were equal to the occasion ; for, donning 
such male attire as they could find and shouldering the family 
arms, they made such a brave show in and about the fort that the 
Indians retired without attempting its capture. A short distance 
east of this stands another old parsonage-fort, but little or noth- 
ing seems to be known concerning its history, though legend 
mentions its cellar door as bearing the marks of Indian toma- 
hawks. It is said to be a fa6l. that the heavy timbers in some of 

95 



CBNTBNNIAL MANSION. 

these old houses were imported from Holland to these heavily 
wooded banks of the Hudson. 

On the pleasantest street of the village stands the Centennial 
Mansion, opposite the Dutch Church, erecfled in 1774 by Daniel 
Van Schaack. The house has been the social centre of the town 
for more than a hundred years. One of its earliest associations 
concerns the visit of General Richard Montgomery, when on his 
way to take command of the army against Canada. Henry Van 
Schaack, a brother of Daniel, was an intimate friend of the Gen- 
eral, they having been thrown together while in the Seventeenth 
Regiment in the war of 1755. 

In October, 1777, General Burgoyne, a prisoner of war, was 
quartered here for a short time, and during the following years 
a long list of prominent men passed through its hospitable 
portals : John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Philip Schuyler, Chan- 
cellor Kent and others. 

After the Van Schaack regime had passed came the Hon. 
Cornelius P. Van Ness, who in due time became chief justice of 
the Supreme Court of Vermont, then its Governor, and later 
was minister to Spain. Washington Irving arouses the ire of the 
local historian by stating that the Van Ness ancestors came by 
their name because they were "valiant robbers of birds' nests." 

96 



CENTENNIAL MANSION. 

The next owner was a merry gentleman whose ghost is said to 
still haunt the sideboard. 

Then came Dr. John P. Beekman, whose first wife was a Van 
Schaack. He added the two wings which adorn either end of the 
building ; and again its doors are opened wide, sharing, with Lin- 
denwald, the honor of entertaining the nation's notables, many 
of them introduced by Van Buren. Such names as Henry Clay, 
Washington Irving, Thomas H. Benton, David Wilmot and 
Charles Sumner head the list. David Wilmot was a notably cor- 
pulent gentleman ; his introdu(5lion by Van Buren to the lady of 
the house is said to have been put thus wise : "Mrs. Beekman, 
you have heard of the Wilmot Proviso — Here he is in the body." 

The house is now occupied by the widow of Aaron J. Vander- 
poel, a Van Schaack grand-daughter. 

From the "Reminiscences" of a Kinderhooker we learn that 
there were two or three stage lines whose coaches passed through 
the village daily, and that the merits of their various steeds were 
the cause of much local controversy around the tavern stove. 
The drivers "were mainly farmers' sons, many of them well to do, 
selected with special reference to sobriety as well as in handling 
the ribbons ;" and the heart of every lad in the village was fired 

97 



THE ACADEMY. 

with the hope that some day he might be sele(5led to fill that high 
office. 

Starting again on the Post Road toward the north, we come 
to the one-time Kinderhook Academy, celebrated in its day, but 
its day has passed, and on the outskirts of the town pass the old 
cemetery where Martin Van Buren and Jesse Merwin lie with the 
forefathers of the neighborhood. 



Me Xcave tbe post IRoab for ^bat Mbicb 
SWrt0 tbe IRlven 



Here we part from the old Post Road, which continues on 
through Valatie, Niverville and South Schodack to Schodack 
Centre, where it joins company with the Boston Road, and to- 
gether they travel through East Greenbush to Greenbush where 
once was the ferry at Crawlier. 

The way I took through Muitzeskill and Castleton to Green- 
bush, is marked with New York and Albany guide posts, but 
none of the old mile-stones adorn its path. 

Ever since Rhinebeck the Catskills have been marching along 
the western horizon, and while generally the river is too far away 
to be a part of the picture, the country, the beautiful country, 
makes one continually wonder, not that the painters of a past 
generation grew to love the region and to revel in its sedu(5live 
delights, but rather that they could ever stop its delineation. The 

99 



MUITZBSKILL. 

effedl of the changing hght and shade and varying atmospheric 
conditions lend the same enchantment that Hes in the ever-chang- 
ing sea. 

About where that mystery, the county hne, crosses the road, 
one stands on a gentle ridge that extends the view both east and 
west. Toward the latter, on this Indian Summer day were the 
ghosts of mountains that in brighter times are the Catskills, 
while to the east are the low-lying hills of the Taghkanic range, 
whose far slopes roll down to meet the advances of theBerkshires. 
Beautiful undulating farm lands lead the eye up to the distant 
hills on either hand, fields of every warm tint with sentinel oaks 
or walnuts, and here and there the wood-lot of the farmer. The 
soft browns and greens of the distant corn stubble, or the winter 
barley fields with the blaze of the Frost King's robes mellowed by 
the golden sun complete a pi6lure common enough in this won- 
derful valley of the Hudson, but always a well-spring of delight 
for the traveler. 

After crossing into Rensselaer County the first village one 
comes in contact with is Muitzeskill, whose burial ground is old 
enough to be interesting to the searcher for curious epitaphs. 
All country places have their odd chara(5lers, and this region is 
no exception. Among the elegant extradls quoted as dropping 



FIREPLACE OF THE NATION. 

from the lips of its citizens is the remark of a certain Michael 
Younghans, hotel keeper, who declaiming about certain im- 
provements he was thinking of, said that he was "A-going to get 
carpenters to impair his house, firiquelly it in front, open pizarro 
all round, up-an-dicular posts on a new destruction." What was 
to happen after that no man knoweth. 

This rolling country was once the council seat of the Mo- 
hicans, this fa6l being commemorated in the name of Schodack, a 
Dutch rendering of the Indian word Esquatak, "the fireplace of 
the nation." The Mohicans had been pretty thoroughly "paci- 
fied" by the Mohawks about the time that Hudson ascended the 
river, and this region is full of legends of fights and ambuscades. 

It seems that Burgoyne's captured army was marched south 
over this road, and some three miles out of Castleton, so the 
story goes, one Jacob Jahn, a Hessian prisoner, escaped to the 
woods and later, building a log house on the exa6l spot where he 
efTe(fled his escape, he settled down, after taking unto himself a 
wife, and became a good citizen. 

The road follows the level table land almost to the Hudson, 
when it dips down a steep incline, crosses the Muitzes Kill and 
joins the river road. Once upon a time, as history records, as an 
excitable Dutch vrouw was wending her way along the banks of 



CASTLETON. 

this brook, a sudden gust of wind caught up her cap, the pride of 
her heart, and whisked it into the water beyond reach, where- 
upon she set up an outcry, "Die muts is in die kill ! Die muts is 
in die kill \" and so it is even unto this day. What kind of a name 
the stream might now be murmuring under, had this adventure 
befallen her good man is fearful to think on. 

It is Castleton because the Indians once had a castle on the 
crest of the hill back of the village. The town is comparatively 
new, having been incorporated as late as 1827, and appears to 
have taken no important or interesting part in the days when 
history was making ; but there was a ship yard here, and home- 
built sloops competed lor the New York trade before the railroad 
changed things. 

It is told of a certain foolish citizen, a passenger on one of 
the village sloops anchored for the night somewhere in the High- 
lands, that, being requested by the wag of the party to steer the 
stationary boat while the others took needed rest, he faithfully 
performed his task until relieved the next morning. When asked 
by his shipmates how they had got on during the night he replied 
that they had got along a good ways by the water, but not far by 
the land. 

Castleton is one long street which wanders out into the open 



"CITIZEN" GENET. 

country at either end, and lonely country it is if one proceeds 
north as the early twilight of a cool November evening is closing 
around. The wayfarer, if he be of a fearful temperament and has 
read the story of the Murder Place, is apt to quicken his steps 
as he passes into the shadows of the trees that gloom the cross- 
ing of the stream marking the northern boundary of the village, 
and known as the Hell Hole. On the right are abrupt little hills, 
wooded and awesome, while off toward the west stretch the fiats 
left by the river, with now and then a silent pool to refled the 
dying embers of the burned-out day. No light gleams from a 
friendly window, only the shadowy form of a hay rake left out by 
some farmer suggests human companionship. With eight miles 
of such traveling ahead, it is small wonder if the wayfarer 
hastens. 

About half-way, where one passes a schoolhouse overlooking 
the fiats and the guide board says 3^/^ miles to Castleton, once 
lived "Citizen" Genet, and his house still stands a quarter of a 
mile back on ProspecT; Hill, facing the cross road to East Green- 
bush. Edmond Charles Genet was sent out to this country in the 
Spring of 1793 by the new French Republic. Things moved rap- 
idly in France in those days, and Genet's friends were soon re- 
moved and he, fearing the guillotine, became an American 

103 



DOUW'S POINT. 

citizen, "a scientific farmer and an ornament to New York soci- 
ety." In 1810 he moved to Greenbush, where he died in 1834. 
His tombstone in the burial groimd of the Dutch Church in East 
Greenbush tells us that "His heart was love and friendship's sun." 
His house was once the home of Gen. Hendrick K. Van Rensse- 
laer, whose bravery at Fort Ann saved the American army in 
1777. 

Part of the flat lands we have been skirting go to make up 
the long island of Paps Knee, which was early sele6led as a place 
of refuge. Here a fort was built and farms were laid out, but 
in 1666 a flood swept away houses and cattle, and since then the 
farmers have lived on the higher main land; only one brick 
house, the fort, escaped and that still stands, bearing its two 
hundred and seventy-five years with the grace of long practice. 

Where the road works down to meet the river comes Douw's 
Point, once the head of steamboat navigation ; passengers for 
Albany and beyond going forward in stages after crossing the 
river in a horse ferryboat. It is whispered that a few rods below 
the point Captain Kidd buried treasure. Old Volkert P. Douw 
was so staunch a patriot that he refused to hold ofifice under the 
English, and gave his money and his time to the American cause. 

In the lower edge of the village of Greenbush and on the 

104 




i^' 



FORT CRALO, GREENBUSH. 

' Supposed to be the oldest building in tlie United States, and to have been erected in 164i 

as a manor Iiouse and place of defensi^ Known a» Fort Cralo. General Aber- 

crombie's headquarters while marchius to attack Fort Ticonderoga in 

1758, when, it is said that at the cantonment oast of this house, 

near the old well, the army surgeon, R. Shuckburg, 

composed the popular song of Yankee Doodle." 



FORT CRAW. 

River Road which we are following stands the most interesting 
building of the region, old Fort Cralo, built in 1642 for proteAion 
against the Indians. Its white oak beams are said to be eighteen 
inches square and its walls two to three feet thick. Some of its 
port-holes still remain as reminders of the times of the war whoop 
and scalp dance. It is said there were once secret passages to 
the river, which is just across the road. During the last of the 
French and Indian wars Major-General James Abercrombie had 
his headquarters here — 1758; and it was here that Yankee Doo- 
dle came into being. Among the Colonial regiments which 
joined the regulars at this point were some from Conne(5licut 
whose appearance became a by-word among the well-kept Brit- 
ish troops. The song was composed by a surgeon attached to 
the army, as a satire on these ragged provincials ; less than 
twenty years later the captured soldiers of Burgoyne marched 
between the lines of the victorious Yankees to the same tune. 

It is but a step to the trolley, and in a brief five minutes we are 
across "The Great River of the Mountains" as Hudson called it, 
and at our journey's end. 

The man who can rise superior to feelings of personal griev- 
ance, or even just anger, is the man we all admire. Such, history 
says, was Gen. Philip Schuyler who, when Burgoyne had wan- 

107 



SCHUYLER— VAN RENSSELAER. 

tonly burned his country seat near Saratoga, entertained that 
same Burgoyne after his capture in his town house, which still 
stands at the head of Schuyler Street, Albany, in so hospitable a 
fashion that the British General, struck with the American's gen- 
erosity, said to him : "'You show me great kindness though I 
have done you much injury," whereupon Schuyler returned: 
"That was the fate of war ; let us say no more about it." This 
house was eredled about 1765, and General Schuyler lived here 
with his family for nearly forty years, dispensing such notable 
hospitality as to call down the blessings of many a traveler to and 
from Canada or the West. 

The Van Rensselaer Manor House stood on the river bank, 
but nothing is now left of it but the little old brick office, which 
stands disconsolate along the street, watching through half- 
closed blinds the great woodworking plant which occupies the 
site of the old home of the Patroon. 

Another reminder of the days gone by still survives in the 
Peter Schuyler house in the northern limits of Albany, at the 
Flats. Lossing says of this : "It is famous in Colonial history as 
the residence of Col. Peter Schuyler, of the Flats, the first mayor 
of Albany, and who, as Indian Commissioner in after years took 

108 



IT IS FINISHED. 

four kings or sachems of the Mohawks to England and presented 
them at the court of Queen Anne," 

And now we have finished, and there is naught to do but re- 
turn home, and various are the ways of doing it. If time is of no 
moment there is the west bank of the Hudson to explore all the 
way down to Paulus Hook, from whence the ferry will easily land 
one once more on the Island of Manhattan. If time counts, the 
night boat is a simple solution of the problem. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




